The Postal Service of the United States has apparently violated the federal law by allowing employees to work for Hillary Clinton’s campaign and their work was even funded by the union, a Fox News report states.
The OSC determined that the USPS “engaged in systemic violations” of the Hatch Act, a federal law that limits some political activities of the federal employees. While they are allowed to do some political work while on leave, the report said the Postal Service showed a “bias” favouring the union’s 2016 campaign operation.
The investigation was initiated several months ago, after Ron Johnson, who is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, brought complaints to the OSC. The constituent, who was a USPS employee, was worried that the Postal Service “incurred unnecessary overtime costs” and “improperly coordinated” with the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) when it allowed members for several weeks of “union official” leave without pay to be part of Hillary’s campaign.
The reported states that around 97 members of NALC sought the leave without pay so they can take part in the campaign. The NALC, which endorsed Clinton last June, compensated those USPS workers using the Letter Carrier Political Fund, the union’s PAC.
According to the report, 82 percent of the work took place in the 2016 battleground states: Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Apparently, officials at multiple levels were involved.
Adam Miles, the OSC Acting Special Counsel said that the NALC provided lists of letter carriers to participate in campaign activity. According to Miles, the local officials “interpreted the communications as directives”.
The report said that local supervisors had concerns about how this will influence the postal workflow and had opposed this, but then there was an instruction received by the USPS.
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