Arbitrator overturns USPS ban on politically motivated leave

Federal Times: The U.S. Postal Service must rescind a recent policy that its employees cannot take union official leave without pay to undertake “partisan political activity,” third party arbitrator Stephen B. Goldberg ruled August 6.

The Postal service instituted the change to the Employee and Labor Relations Manual (ELM) after a July 2017 Office of Special Counsel investigation called for the removal of such leave practices as they constituted a “systemic violation of the Hatch Act,” which restricts political campaign activities by federal employees.

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