By Brooke Singman – August 22, 2017
Republican lawmakers are casting a wider net in their search for wrongdoing at federal agencies in past election cycles, after learning the Postal Service violated the law by allowing employees to do union-funded work for Hillary Clintonâs campaign while on leave.
The lawmakers blasted out letters on Monday to 10 other federal government agencies questioning their unpaid leave policy for union-related political work.
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., led the charge on the review of agenciesâ practices after spurring an investigation by the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) beginning in October 2016. That inquiry revealed that the USPS violated federal law by letting employees perform union-funded work for Clintonâs campaign and other Democratic candidates while on leave from the agency.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., joined Johnsonâs efforts this week by penning joint letters to the departments of Commerce, Homeland Security, Defense, Justice, Labor, Transportation, Treasury, Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, and the Social Security Administration Monday. The letters concerned what’s known as âunion official Leave Without Pay (LWOP)â for political campaign activity.
The letters cited the OSCâs findings regarding the USPS that âonly [employees] who wanted to campaign for the [unionâs] endorsed candidates were given the opportunity to take several weeks of leave on short notice, over the objections of local supervisors who raised concerns about potential operational impact.â The OSCâs findings revealed that the USPS violated the Hatch Act, a federal law that limits certain political activities of federal employees. While employees are allowed to do some political work on leave, the report said the USPS showed a âbiasâ favoring the unionâs 2016 campaign operation.
âThe procedures by which federal employees request LWOP, and by which managers and supervisors consider these requests, are the product of negotiation between the agency and the employeesâ collective bargaining representative,â Johnson and Gowdy wrote, requesting specific information to âensure federal agencies are granting LWOP in a politically neutral manner.â
Johnson and Gowdy asked for information regarding âuse of LWOP in the three months prior to a federal electionâ dating back to 2008, agreements between the agency and employees regarding their leave, written policies and all documents and communications related to the use of LWOP.
Johnson and Gowdy requested âstate-by-stateâ data for the requested information, giving a deadline of 5 p.m. on Sept. 11.
Source: Republicans dig deeper after Postal Service cited for workers’ Clinton campaign aid | Fox News
Union and NAME of Local/Branch
Ernest Johnson
Office held, if any
APWU Retiree Chapter President
These two are out of touch at best. Just as the Union can’t dictate to the USPS on Management personal issues, then the small minded thinking Republicans can’t tell the Union who they can pay to perform Union sanctioned Business. Any hinderance to the Union business being performed by members is discriminative by nature and unlawful. If any Postal employee proclaiming to be Republican, and said Republican are supporting Union causes then whats the problem. So the numb skull supporting the agenda of those not in our best interest are too embarrassed to admit their loyalty to the GOP, Well !