National Right to Work Foundation opposes DOL proposal easing union financial disclosure rules

The comments further explain: “The lack of more detailed reporting requirements for these unions therefore harms over 4 million workers by denying them meaningful details” regarding how union officials spend their hard-earned money.

The Foundation also noted that current LM-2 forms allow workers to see spending on overhead, administration, and political contributions. They argue that moving more unions to LM-3 filings would obscure this information: “[t]he proposed rule will deprive workers of this information about many unions because the LM-3 does not include these reporting categories.”

Additionally, the Foundation claims reduced transparency could hinder enforcement of rights established by the Supreme Court’s Communications Workers of America v. Beck decision, which prevents union officials from requiring nonmembers to pay for ideological activities unrelated to workplace representation.

Addressing OLMS’ justification for the rule change—that it reduces regulatory burden—the Foundation’s comments state: “An estimate that OLMS put out about the number of hours that the proposed requirements would save unions is ‘out of date, fails to account for modern…software, and is not even an estimate of the time it takes impacted unions to complete LM-2 reports, but rather is an estimate of the average time it takes all unions to complete LM-2 reports.’”

The Foundation called on OLMS to require all unions to file full LM-2 reports regardless of size. “The benefit of this change is self-evident: workers, the public, and the Department will receive more information about union finances, which in turn will lead to more informed workers and deter and uncover more union corruption,” according to their submission.

National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix commented: “America’s top union bosses are routinely caught abusing the funds they demand from millions of workers across the country, all while promoting divisive and often radical political causes at every level of government. Acting in the best interests of workers means providing more clarity on how employee money is spent, not less.”

Mix added: “Make no mistake: The OLMS’ proposed rule will benefit union bosses at the expense of rank-and-file workers. Every worker deserves to know the basic details of how their money is being spent by those who claim to ‘represent them,’ and the slated rule would deprive millions of workers of what little information they already have.”