Department of Labor Moves to Reduce Delinquency in Labor Union Reporting

The US Department of Labor announced yesterday a plan to reduce the delinquency of labor union financial reporting.

According to the Employment Standards Administrations Office of Labor Management Standards, 30-40% of unions are delinquent in the filing their disclosure reports and over 1200 are more than a year late. Labor organizations representing employees in the private sector are required to file a report with the department within 90 days of the end of its fiscal year. Reporting rules require national, regional and local unions with an income of more than $250,000 to provide financial details in the annual reports they must file with the Labor Department.

The Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS) was created to administer and enforce provisions of the Landrum-Griffin Act (Officially the "Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959"). This statute was enacted to regulate internal union affairs, including the regulation and control of union funds. Landrum Griffin also bars former members of the Communist party and former convicts from holding a union office for a period of five years after resigning their party membership or being released from prison.

Union members are also protected against abuses by a bill of rights that includes guarantees of freedom of speech and periodic secret elections. Secondary boycotting and organizational and recognition picketing (i.e., picketing of companies where a rival union is already recognized) are also severely restricted by the act.

Through online submission of the financial disclosures, the DOL has made the financial information to the public. The unions targeted under this plan should have filed financial disclosure forms for their fiscal years ending in 2005, with the reports due no later than March 31, 2006. The department intends to send warning letters to all of the covered unions and, after 30 days, the names of those unions that have not filed will be posted on the OLMS Web site with the possibility of further legal action.

The OLMS Public Disclosure website can be found at unionreports.dol.gov. From this site you can (1) view and print reports filed by unions, union officers and employees, employers, and labor relations consultants for the year 2000 and after and reports filed by unions for trusts in which they have an interest, (2) order reports for the year 1999 and prior, and (3) search the union annual financial reports for the year 2000 and after and the trust reports for key data items.

The OLMS says that this effort is part of a commitment to financial transparency for union members and that they offer compliance assistance to labor organizations required to file.

Sources:

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed., "Landrum-Griffin Act". URL: infoplease.com/ce6/bus/A0828769.html

Associated Press, "Labor Department to go after unions that do not file expenditure disclosure forms", URL: washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/13/AR2007061302166.html

US Department of Labor Press Release, URL :earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,122015.shtml