Reason #5605 That Trump Was Elected

US Post Office Spent Big OT Bucks To Cover Workers While They Campaigned For Hillary

The Post Office lost $5.6B dollars in fiscal year 2016. (To be fair, they actually showed a small profit, but the federal government forced them to pony up $5.8B to fund future retiree pension costs. That’s a story for another day, however.) But they might have made up a bit of that cash if they weren’t paying overtime costs to cover workers in battleground states who took unpaid leave to go campaign for Hillary Clinton. If that sounds like the sort of thing which would never happen where you work, well… you’re probably right. But once again we need to look no further than the involvement of the union which represents your letter carriers. (Government Executive)

The U.S. Postal Service spent $90,000 on overtime to cover for employees who took time off to campaign in advance of the 2016 election, according to a new report.
Unionized postal workers are allowed to take unpaid leave to engage in official activities on behalf of their labor groups, according to the USPS inspector general, but the agency did not follow proper protocols to ensure it should have granted the time off. Ninety-seven letter carriers across the country took leave without pay to “participate in political activities on behalf of” the National Association of Letter Carriers in the months leading up to the November election.
While the practice of allowing employees to take leave without pay to conduct union business is legal, a spokesperson for the Office of Special Counsel said it is coordinating with the Postal Service’s IG to determine whether any of the employees violated the Hatch Act.

To be fair, neither the article nor the IG report specifically say that the union members were campaigning for Hillary Clinton in those battleground states, but I don’t think we need to call in Sherlock Holmes on this one. Look no further than the NALC endorsement statement from June of 2016.

Wasteful and politically charged government spending is one of the main reasons for people to vote for anti-establishment candidates like Trump.