FreedomWorks Foundation Submits Comments Supporting Changes to Labor Union Financial Reporting

FreedomWorks Foundation’s Regulatory Action Center (RAC) submitted comments to the Labor-Management Standards Office (LMSO) regarding regulatory changes to financial reporting requirements for labor unions. This proposal would increase transparency and accountability in the reporting process for labor unions by updating disclosure Form LM-2.

The full comment can be found here, in the attachment at the bottom of this post, or excerpted below:

As the notice points out, the original intent of the Labor Management Relations Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA) was to bring accountability and transparency to the operation of labor unions. Title 29, which contains LMRDA, plainly states that action in this area was necessary as a result of “a number of instances of breach of trust, corruption, disregard of the rights of individual employees, and other failures to observe high standards of responsibility and ethical conduct.” Since then, the most recent time these provisions were updated was under the administration of President George W. Bush. The Obama administration also attempted to update Form LM-2, but this proposal never came to fruition.

Now, nearly 20 years later, the reporting process for labor unions retains many of the issues that both the Bush and Obama administrations attempted to address. Namely, the vagaries of Form LM-2 have allowed questions of transparency and accountability to continue to cloud large labor unions. In short, there should be no significant difference between their reporting requirements and those of other organizations like nonprofits and private corporations. Labor unions should be held to the same standards as everyone else.