{"id":29024,"date":"2020-07-22T11:15:12","date_gmt":"2020-07-22T16:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=29024"},"modified":"2020-07-22T11:15:12","modified_gmt":"2020-07-22T16:15:12","slug":"usps-employees-reminded-of-hatch-act-social-media-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2020\/07\/22\/usps-employees-reminded-of-hatch-act-social-media-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"USPS Employees Reminded of Hatch Act Social Media Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>USPS News Link &#8211; 7\/22\/20 &#8211; The Postal Service is reminding employees that they are required to abide by the Hatch Act, including the guidelines for using social media \u2014 even while <em><a href=\"https:\/\/link.usps.com\/2020\/05\/14\/home-court\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">working from home<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>??????????????Here\u2019s a quick recap of the law:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Hatch Act exists to keep politics out of federal workplaces.\u00a0<\/strong>The law, passed in 1939, limits certain political activities of federal employees, including postal workers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Hatch Act\u2019s goals are 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 promoted based on merit, not political affiliation. ????<\/p>\n<p>Employees can register to vote and support their favorite candidates by voting, but other activities \u2014 like promoting political preferences in the workplace \u2014 are limited.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Hatch Act applies online, as well as in real life.\u00a0<\/strong>The Hatch Act permits employees to post campaign logos or images on social media, including their personal Facebook pages, Instagram accounts and Twitter feeds.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The law also allows employees to comment on social media posts about politics, although they cannot identify themselves as federal employees in their comments.<\/p>\n<p>USPS employees aren\u2019t allowed to use their social media accounts while on the clock.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Under the law, employees should choose profile photos wisely.\u00a0<\/strong>Here\u2019s where things can get tricky.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from using campaign images as social media profile photos. The reason: Because profile images are attached at all times to everything a person \u201clikes,\u201d tweets or comments on, they are categorized as on-the-clock politicking \u2014 which is restricted under the Hatch Act.<\/p>\n<p>Employees with questions about the do\u2019s and don\u2019ts of the Hatch Act should go to the\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/blue.usps.gov\/uspslaw\/Ethics.htm#Hatch%20Act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ethics Blue page<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/osc.gov\/Services\/Pages\/HatchAct-FAQ.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FAQs<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/osc.gov\/Services\/Pages\/HatchAct.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hatch Act<\/a><\/em>\u00a0websites.<\/p>\n<p>Employees can also contact their local field law office or send an email to\u00a0<em><a href=\"mailto:ethics.help@usps.gov\">ethics.help@usps.gov<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-29025 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Hatch-Act-Information-478x280-1-300x176.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"176\" srcset=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Hatch-Act-Information-478x280-1-300x176.jpg 300w, https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Hatch-Act-Information-478x280-1.jpg 478w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>USPS News Link &#8211; 7\/22\/20 &#8211; The Postal Service is reminding employees that they are required to abide by the Hatch Act, including the guidelines for using social media \u2014 even while working from home. ??????????????Here\u2019s a quick recap of the law: The Hatch Act exists to keep politics out of federal workplaces.\u00a0The law, passed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-usps-news","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29024"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29026,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29024\/revisions\/29026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}