I wish I could be so optimistic.
In 2002 at a Weyerhauser plant in Oklahoma, the company management ordered a police search of employee vehicles for drugs. No drugs were found, but about a dozen employees were fired when firearms were found in their vehicles. All the employees weapons legally, either handguns with permits or hunting weapons.
Subsequently the state legislature passed an employee parking-lot law like the one under discussion here.
Weyerhauser, ConocoPhillips, and Williams Cos. filed suit to void the law. They won in the first round, but eventually the law was upheld in 2009.
These companies probably spent millions in legal fees to overturn the law. They produced a valuable federal court ruling that allowing employees to have firearms in their own vehicles is not within the scope of OSHA regulations (which was the basis of the suit).
http://www.newson6.com/story/9873937/co ... ns-in-cars" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
This ruling directly affects only the 10th circuit (that is, not Texas), but it serves as a precedent for suits that may be filed in other circuits.
Along the way, the NRA promoted a boycott against ConocoPhillips. This boycott was nationwide news in 2005. ConocoPhillips did not change its course of action or suffer any detectable loss of business.
http://www.nraila.org/Issues/Articles/R ... 9&issue=53" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The entire story of this episode has not been told in one place.
Now for my opinion:
The management of many companies is stupid. It is a huge, blind beast that continues to do what it has always done because it has always done it that way. They do not always make decisions that result in long-term profitability. That is why so many of the formerly great companies of the 20th century either no longer exist or reduced to brand names owned by someone else.
They also are afraid of their own employees—usually with good reason.
As for Texas being conservative, keep in mind that many of these large companies are run by MBAs and lawyers in some other state or country.
- Jim
Fear, anger, hatred, and greed. The devil's all-you-can-eat buffet.