Press Release: Unions Successfully Pressure Obama to Break Transparency Campaign Promise
AWF issued the below press release in response to President Obama rolling back the conflict of interest union reporting requirements:
Unions Successfully Pressure Obama to Break Transparency Campaign Promise
Obama rescinds union conflict of interest reporting requirements in first 100 days
Washington, D.C. — Today, the Alliance for Worker Freedom, a project established in 2003 to combat anti-worker legislation and promote free and open labor markets, condemned the Obama Administrations’ decision that unions were no longer required to file the Form LM-30, which disclosed potential conflicts of interest and helped protect union members from financial pitfalls.
The purpose of disclosure, according to the Department of Labor is “to publicly identify an actual or potential conflict between the personal financial interests of a union office or employee…and his or her obligations to the union and its members.” After running a campaign on increased transparency and accountability, the Alliance for Worker Freedom is disappointed in Obama’s decision.
“The issue here is transparency,” says AWF executive director Brian M Johnson. “The reason all Department of Labor financial reporting forms exist is to ensure that union officials are held accountable for their financial activity. Members’ dues should be used to provide services for the members – not for other purposes prohibited by law.”
Since 2001, the Department of Labor’s Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS), has convicted over 780 union members and officials on charges of financial corruption and restored over $110 million in dues that were misused. However, Johnson fears that this is the first step by the Obama Administration to undue the monitoring of union finances and eventually cut funding from the entire OLMS.
“We must ask why Obama is seeking to increase the ‘cover of shadows’ by which unions conduct business?” says Johnson. “For a guy who ran on transparency, this move in the first 100 days truly shows where the political allegiances of this Administration lay – with Big Labor bosses and not with protecting rank-and-file workers.”
