- Latest regarding revelation about USPS political activity
- Some Iowa Civil Service employees even more egregious, threatening political retaliation . . . and more?
Not all, probably not most, public employees buy into the abuse of the rules, the abuse of spirit of public employment as regards overt electoral political activity. But they pay dues to and reelect those that do.
The Daily Caller and other conservative outlets reported on the abuse by US Postal Service union management. We see them as primarily responsible, regular workers are going to do what they can get away with when encouraged by union leadership.
US Postal Service Breaks Election Laws To Support Hillary, Media Silent
Will Ricciardella reports: (excerpt)
The big three networks ignored a report Wednesday uncovering violations of federal law committed by the U.S. Postal Service, which pressured managers to approve time off for employees to campaign for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other Democrats.
“High-level postal officials had for years granted employees’ requests for unpaid leave, leading last year to an ‘institutional bias’ in favor of Clinton and other Democrats endorsed by the National Association of Letter Carriers, one of the largest postal unions” amounting to a violation of the Hatch Act, reports The Washington Post.
The Hatch Act is a law enacted in 1939 to prevent federal employees from supporting candidates. Investigators concluded that the postal service had been involved in the process since the 1990s.
“You kind of have to scratch your head when you have such systemic violations of the Hatch Act and nobody’s really held accountable,” Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told WaPo. . . .
Federal employees can advocate for political candidates in their free time, but by requesting the time to campaign for Hillary Clinton against the protestations of local post office manager due to staffing concerns, they showed bias towards the Clinton campaign, according to the director of the Office of Special Counsel, Adam Miles.
But even more blatant is what went on in Iowa, albeit by state and municipal employees:
There were direct political threats back in February during the Iowa legislature’s debate regarding public employee collective bargaining reform. These are Civil Service employees disregarding the “grand bargain”, that they don’t abuse the political system and they don’t get swept out with every change of administration.
Not all public employees are represented by AFSCME, other unions can represent them. In this case consider the words by a Teamster police officer, Jon Thomas, widely applauded by all the union types in attendance at the rally held in conjunction with the public hearing at the Iowa State Capitol where he appeared to oppose Republican sponsored efforts (comments piped to the audience in the rotunda).
The clip above is from a Des Moines Register online report (sound problem now fixed). Transcript of the clip follows. Perhaps the officer was referring to mere voting and not “being there for you ” in other ways. But consider also that these were prepared remarks, so not specifying is arguably intended to mean more. Besides the threat of political retaliation is clear.
Every legislator who supports this bill should expect to be challenged next November in their elections by a police officer, a teacher or a public sector worker. I hope legislators remember this when the employees who perform this work are not there for them.
Other thuggish behavior was not apologized for as also reported in the Des Moines Register, and to their credit not excused:
Iowa GOP chief complains of ‘thuggish’ comments, but union lobbyist won’t apologize
Reading the article and the oh-so-clever characterizations spewed by the union lobbyist we detect a lot of sexist focus this season by Democrats using anatomical related references.
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Not surprisingly Democrats see the Hatch Act and Civil Service provisions protecting the public interest as a one-way street. Consider that Harry Reid believed that James Comey violated the Hatch Act when he embarrassed Hillary Clinton last summer. Don’t trust us, trust CNN:
What is the Hatch Act — and did James Comey break it?
The article provides a credible synopsis explaining the Hatch Act as it affects federal employees.
Oh, and about those public employees in Iowa, so abused by those “douche bag” Republican legislators and their supporters in the state who have given them majority control, in part to do something about being held financially hostage by public unions, consider this article by Amy Frantz writing at the Mises Institute: (excerpt)
Why Government Employees in Iowa Are Paid So Much
Iowa has the largest Pay Gap in the nation.
“The Pay Gap” is calculated using Bureau of Labor Statistics data, which gives the average annual wage of a state-government worker and the average annual wage of a private-sector worker for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Our study uses these figures to determine the Pay Gap between the average state-government worker and the average private-sector worker in each state. In 2015, Iowa’s state-government workers received an average wage that was 149.76 percent of what the average private-sector worker in Iowa was paid. Iowa’s Pay Gap was larger than that of any other state or the District of Columbia. . . .
R Mall
Public Union leaders didn’t abuse my trust… I had none. At least in them. I’ve seen this “in kind” contribution. When my UAW “brother” was on paid “union business.” The “business”? Drive Lane Evans anywhere he wanted to go.