Last month, Democrats in the House pushed through a budget cut for the Office of Labor-Management Standards, which enforces financial disclosure rules for labor unions. It was the only unit in the Department of Labor that didn’t see its budget increased. Today, while catching up on professional reading, I came across an interesting OLMS announcement, issued not long before the Dems decided that its funding should be squeezed:
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) has announced a plan to reduce delinquent reporting among labor unions that are required to file annual financial disclosure forms (Form LM-2, LM-3, or LM-4) with OLMS.
Every labor organization representing private sector employees is required to file a report with OLMS within 90 days after the end of its fiscal year, or further enforcement action will be pursued. Each year, however, 30 to 40 percent of unions fail to submit their reports on time, and in some instances reports remain outstanding for over one year.
OLMS’ effort to reduce this delinquency will initially focus on approximately 1,275 unions whose reports are over one year past due, including 118 of the largest unions, which are required to file the electronic Form LM-2. These unions should have filed financial disclosure forms for their fiscal years ending in 2005, with the reports due no later than March 31, 2006.
OLMS will send letters to the unions that have not filed their 2005 annual report and, after 30 days, the names of those unions that have not filed will be posted on the OLMS Web site at http://www.olms.dol.gov. Further enforcement action then will be pursued, including referral to local U.S. attorneys for civil or criminal enforcement.
Among their other legal privileges, unions are tax-exempt, that is, from the standard issue liberal point of view, their activities are underwritten by U.S. taxpayers. (That’s what the Left thinks about pension plans, charities, etc.) Other exempt organizations get little government sympathy when they are late with their required reports. A pension plan sponsor can, for instance, be fined up to $1,100 a day for tardiness. I’m sure that few Democratic congressmen would be pleased if the DoL announced that it doesn’t care much if Form 5500’s are a year or two late. Yet almost all of them are, it appears, mightily displeased at vigorous efforts to improve compliance among a different group of exempt entities.
We can add rank-and-file union members, who may be interested in timely information about how their dues money is being spent, to the groups that don’t have much clout in the 110th Congress.
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