Marriott Vacations Employee Fired for Running for Political Office

After seeking a local political office, a Florida woman was fired for not asking for her employer’s permission.

On August 26, Viviana Janer won the Democratic nomination for the District 2 seat on the Osceola County Commission in Florida. Her happy victory turned sour on September 19, when Marriott Vacations Worldwide fired her after 11 years with the company. Janer, who had been a senior manager for the organization, was axed because she ran for office without the company’s permission, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

The time-share company fired Janer after asking her to quit either her campaign or her job, explaining that her candidacy and possible service on the Commission created a potential conflict of interest. In Janer’s termination letter, the organization’s senior vice president and chief audit executive, Julie Meyer, stated that she only found out about Janer’s campaign from recent press coverage. Meyer wrote that “you admitted that you had concluded that your supervisors would not authorize you to pursue your candidacy while remaining in your position, and for that reason you did not raise it to management’s attention nine months earlier or any time thereafter.”

Ed Kinney, a spokesperson for Marriott Vacations Worldwide, which became a separate company in 2011 when parent company Marriott International spun it off, told ThinkProgress.org that, indeed, the problem was not Janer’s campaign but that she failed to notify supervisors so the company could ensure no conflict of interest. While Kinney admitted the organization has no properties in Osceola County, he said that “other companies in our industry do.”

Janer explained to ThinkProgress that should she find herself on the Commission with a conflict of interest, “I’d have to recuse myself just like any other commissioner.” She added that she’d recuse herself even as a terminated employee.

She further said that she did not think she had a duty to notify Marriott that she was seeking office, citing a corporate policy that encourages associates to get involved in government. “I followed their written company policy. Nowhere in that policy does it state that I have to ask permission,” she said. “If they have a policy where they say they strongly encourage associates to run for office, I wouldn’t imagine they’d fire me for running for office.”

ThinkProgress.org senior investigative reporter Josh Israel cited company guidelines that state that employees are “encouraged to participate in the political and governmental process, but must be certain that they are doing so using their own resources and their own time.”

Furthermore, Israel wrote of the policy: “While it says executives and those involved with government contracting must ‘obtain permission from Marriott’s Office of Government Affairs prior to making state and local contributions,’ it places no such requirement on would-be political candidates.

“The termination letter sent to Janer cites a separate policy document pertaining to ‘outside business activities.’ But while that section prohibits business activities that detract from job performance or result in conflicts of interest, it makes no mention whatsoever of political activity or required permission to run for office.”

Janer, who is exploring her legal options, vowed to continue her race. If elected, she’d be the second woman, and first Hispanic female, to serve on the Osceola County Commission.

[Photo: Marriott Vacations Worldwide]