The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has been on the frontline fighting for worker rights for decades and in January when the Obama Administration began to fiddle with union disclosure the Foundation was one the first to sound the alarm. Currently, the Foundation has a FOIA request filed with the Department and the Foundation is working on its comments opposing the Obama Administrations planned rescission (follow link to write your comment) of union financial reporting.
An article in today’s Wall Street Journal by former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao may provide additional information for its pending comments.
Chao provides an interesting history of a very little office (Office of Labor-Management Standards) in the government that union bosses seem to disproportionately fear.
The Obama administration likes to say that it is “pro-worker.” But something is amiss when its labor priorities are forcing unionization and labor contracts on American workplaces, and denying union members information on how their dues money is spent.
From 2001-2008, the Labor Department secured more than 1,000 union fraud-related indictments and 929 convictions. This enforcement record was accomplished even though the enforcement office accounts for less than 0.1% of the department’s budget. OLMS is the lone federal agency with the job of protecting worker interests in how their unions are managed. The last Congress increased President Bush’s budget request for the Labor Department by $956 million even as it targeted OLMS for a budget cut.
Tension escalated between Dependable Highway Express workers and union after Teamsters officials threatened termination of worker who revealed union boss salaries
UFCW union officials threatened that employee would be fired for not signing illegal dues deduction authorization form, Kroger still taking dues from employee’s paycheck
Business Manager Danny Hendrix regarding Local 798’s all-white staff: “The cream always rises to the top . . . .”