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Post Published: Jun 23, 2009

Issa Weighs-in on Administration’s Roll-back of Union Transparency Requirements


WASHINGTON. D.C. – House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA), yesterday, in a letter to the Office of Labor-Management Standards of the U.S. Department of Labor objecting to plans to withdrawal a reporting rule for the nation’s largest labor organizations that offers union members an unprecedented level of transparency through which they can hold their union and its officers accountable.


“While the Administration continues to talk about improving transparency and accountability of government and financial firms, it has taken the opposite tact in seeking to aid and abet criminal wrongdoing by corrupt union bosses,” wrote Rep. Issa.  “By dismantling reporting requirements and other safeguards meant to stop embezzlement and other illegal activities, these changes would deprive more than 8 million private sector U.S. workers of the means to effectively and independently monitor their labor organization.”


The rules in question involve reporting forms (LM-2 and LM-3) that create a level of parity between union and corporate reporting.  Reporting forms have helped the Department of Labor’s Office of Labor Management and Standards (OLMS) successfully prosecute and convict 904 union officers, employees, and representatives resulting in $91,524,704 in restitution to defrauded unions and their members between 2001 and 2008.


Click here to read the letter from Rep. Issa to Ms. Denise M. Boucher, the Director of the Office of Policy, Reports and Disclosure.