Today, Republican Workforce Leaders on the Education and Labor Committee, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), submitted a comment letter to Secretary Eugene Scalia supporting the Department of Labor’s (DOL) proposed rule to increase transparency and accountability among union intermediate bodies, which are mid-level public sector labor organizations.
In the letter, Reps. Foxx and Walberg write: “Improving the integrity of labor unions is particularly important in the public sector where unions have become powerful forces with significant impact on public policy and taxpayers. That is why we strongly support efforts to improve union transparency and accountability so well-documented fraud, embezzlement, and other forms of corruption in organized labor are stopped, and workers are served better by unions. The proposed rule will help achieve these commonsense goals and benefit public-sector and private-sector workers and the American public."
BACKGROUND: This proposed rule is nearly identical to a rule the George W. Bush administration enacted, which was rescinded by Obama’s DOL. It is nearly impossible for a private-sector union member to see how his or her dues are being used by a mid-level public-sector union that receives funds from a national or international labor organization. The proposed rule would allow private-sector and public-sector workers, and the public, to track that spending by requiring union intermediate bodies to comply with the reporting requirements of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. This would provide a valuable tool to help combat union corruption and wrongdoing.
