The U.S. Postal Service violated federal law by letting employees do union-funded work for Hillary Clinton’s campaign and other Democratic candidates while on leave from the agency, according to an Office of Special Counsel report obtained by Fox News.
The OSC determined the USPS “engaged in systemic violations” of the Hatch Act, a federal law that limits certain political activities of federal employees.
The investigation was launched months ago after Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., brought constituent complaints to the OSC in October. The constituent, identified as a USPS employee, was concerned the Postal Service “incurred unnecessary overtime costs” and “improperly coordinated” with the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) when it released members for several weeks of “union official” leave without pay to participate in campaign work.
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Chairman of Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., on Capitol Hill in April 2017.
(Reuters)
“The Labor 2016 program sought to ‘elect Hillary Clinton and pro-worker candidates across the country,’” the report said, citing campaign work like door-to-door canvassing, phone banks and other get-out-the-vote efforts.
According to the report, roughly 97 NALC members requested the leave without pay to participate. The NALC, which endorsed Clinton last June, compensated those USPS workers using the Letter Carrier Political Fund, the union’s PAC.
The majority of the campaign work took place in 2016 battleground states, specifically Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
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Officials at multiple levels apparently were involved.
According to OSC Acting Special Counsel Adam Miles, the NALC provided lists of letter carriers to participate in campaign activity to a senior headquarters USPS labor relations official, who then emailed the lists to other USPS officials across the country. According to Miles, the local officials “interpreted the communications as directives” from USPS headquarters to release the carriers on union official leave without pay.
According to the report, local supervisors raised concerns about the impact this would have on postal operations and initially objected to releasing them, but USPS managers instructed local supervisors to let the workers participate.
“We concluded that the USPS practice of facilitating and directing carrier releases for the union’s political activity resulted in an institutional bias in favor of NALC’s endorsed political candidates, which the Hatch Act prohibits,” Miles said in prepared testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which is set to hold a hearing Wednesday on the matter.
The Hatch Act is a federal law that limits certain political activities of federal employees. The law’s purpose is to ensure federal programs are “administered in a nonpartisan fashion, to protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, and to ensure that federal employees are advanced based on merit and not based on political affiliation,” according to the OSC. The office is an independent federal agency that monitors compliance with that law and others.
Miles, in his prepared remarks, said the OSC investigation revealed the NALC-USPS practice is “long-standing, going back many election cycles, and perhaps started in the 1990s.”
“As a federal entity, the USPS must remain politically neutral,” Miles’ testimony said. “In many localities, the Postal Service is a citizen’s primary point of contact with the federal government, reinforcing the need for strict adherence to the letter and the spirit of the Hatch Act.”
OSC recommended in the report that, going forward, USPS management not require, direct or suggest local supervisors release union members to engage in political activity.
Miles added: “OSC has communicated these recommendations to USPS, and agency representatives appear ready to take the steps necessary to comply with the Hatch Act.”
Brooke Singman is a Reporter for Fox News. Follow her on Twitter at @brookefoxnews.
