National Right to Work Committee releases new report re: Obama appointed union financial reporting overseer

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John Lund

Former SEIU and IUOE Official, Big Labor Consultant, Former Pacific Northwest Labor College Director, and Former University of Wisconsin School for Workers Director (currently on unpaid leave from the School for Workers)

(Download the full Report)

APPOINTMENT: U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) Director

Current Responsibilities:  Overseer of labor union financial reporting and disclosure, union officer conflict-of-interest reporting, and certain employer activities; he is responsible for criminal investigations regarding issues under his oversight such as labor union financial irregularities and embezzlement.

Past and current non-DOL employers:  Lund is currently on unpaid leave from his other employer, University of Wisconsin’s School for Workers. The School for Workers is a taxpayer-supported institution with its primary function is to serve as a training center for union officials, such as the union organizers who ginned up the tension in Madison, Wisconsin and across the U.S.

It is reported that, from 2004-2007, Lund worked closely with the AFL-CIO “on [union] financial accountability and transparency issues.” These are the issues Lund currently controls at DOL.

He has been a consultant for the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters, BLET , and IUOE, to name just a few. In his position of union trainer and consultant, Lund worked directly with many of the union officials who has recently rewarded with reduced reporting and disclosure regulations that he has instituted during his tenure at DOL. Lund is also in charge of the DOL office which investigates embezzlements and union election fraud, giving Lund the conflicting responsibility for making decisions about union officials he has trained and advised. In addition, Lund oversees union audits and he is now privy to DOL’s labor union auditing and criminal investigation techniques. Soon he will be back teaching these same union officers how to navigate around DOL audits.

The fact that Lund has trained such a large number of union officials to complete (and navigate around) OLMS reports, the question arises, “If DOL investigators find a report(s) that Lund helped prepare for his union clients, will he now not inform his former union clients of the investigation nor try dissuade DOL investigators by arguing on behalf of his former clients? Will he provide the names of all the unions and all of the union officers he has trained over the years to DOL investigators and require them to keep investigations involving any of these people secret from him?” There is an unavoidable tension between his former and future clients, and his current appointed position that creates an inescapable conflict-of-interest.

Executive Order 13490 (EO 13490) Ethics Questions: On his first full day as President, Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13490, known as the Ethics Executive Order. Obama’s ethics order required appointees to sign a pledge affirming that:

“For two (2) years from date of appointment, you may not participate in any particular matter involving a specific party that includes a former employer or a former client.”

EO 13490 creates two problems for John Lund:  (1) His former clients include the AFL-CIO and other labor unions and labor union LMRDA Trusts , and (2) He remains an employee of Wisconsin School for Workers which continues to provide training for labor unions.

Facts related to Lund’s EO 13490 Ethics Pledge

• On 29 April 2008, Lund made formal comments against DOL’s Form T-1 Disclosure Report. As OLMS Director, Lund rescinded the Form T-1 disclosure report on 1 December 2010, and he simultaneously rescinded reporting by NEA “intermediate bodies,” like the Wisconsin Education Association Council.

• In 2008, Fund provided training at the IUOE FALL NORTH/CENTRAL STATES CONFERENCE on “Selecting and Researching Organizing Targets.” Lund has recently chosen to ignore reporting of the 2007 LM-30 conflict-of-interest disclosure reports, and proposes to rescind these reports. In addition, he has proposed to redefine the statutory term “Employer” by regulation in an effort to eliminate disclosure of union organizing activities and employer-paid union time.

In fact, when Lund wrote his 2005 piece about LM-30, a union stewards’ “Advisory regarding Labor Dept. LM-30” was published about the LM-30, with Lund’s 2005 LM-30 article attached. Now, Lund has proposed changes to LM-30 form that exempts most union stewards from having to report any conflict-of-interests.

• Without regard to appearances, OLMS Director Lund continues to take time to provide training for his Big Labor friends. On 2010 January 25, Lund flew, at government expense, to Seattle, WA, to provide the AFL-CIO’s Washington Labor Council members with a personal overview of his recent reporting rescissions. To the right is an image of the union’s headlining John Lund’s 3-hour tax-payer funded presentation.

At the Jan. 25 workshop, Lund will discuss the new regulations, the common reporting mistakes unions make and how to correct them, and answer your specific questions to ensure your LM reports are accurate.

OLMS maintains a District Office in Seattle and normally, its staff would have provided this compliance assistance. Instead, OLMS Director John Lund went out of his way, with taxpayer dollars, to create this personal conflict-of-interest.

• Among the many examples illustrating Lund’s close ties to the AFL-CIO, this Australian description of Lund in 2007 stands out: “For the last four years, he has worked closely with the AFL-CIO on financial accountability and transparency issues.” In fact, AFL-CIO General Counsel quoted a John Lund burden estimate for the 2003 LM-2 changes in his arguments against disclosure. John Lund’s estimate was proven erroneous as were other AFL-CIO experts’ claims, such as the outrageous of $1.3 billion exaggeration by Dr. Ruth Ruttenberg.

But, now that Lund is in charge of OLMS, AFL-CIO union experts’ estimates are taken seriously; despite the AFL-CIO’s past record of demonstrably false “expert” calculations and comments.