Union Financial Disclosure Form Sheds Light on Secret Billions
March 7, 2008
Ms. Kay H. Oshel
Director of the Office of Policy, Reports and Disclosure
The Office of Labor Management Standards
U.S. Department of Labor
200 Constitution Avenue NW, Room N-5609
Washington, DC 20210
Dear Director Oshel,
On behalf of the Alliance for Worker Freedom (AWF), an advocacy organization that utilizes research, lobbying and education efforts to protect workers rights, I am urging the approval of the recently submitted Form T-1, used by the Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS) to ensure union financial accountability of trusts.
The Department of Labor should be congratulated for revising the LM forms and heightening OLMS scrutiny. Its actions have greatly increased the transparency of union finances. But one thing is missing: The public disclosure of information on union trust funds and pension management and specifically covering the disclosure of Voluntary Employee Benefit Associations or VEBAs.
This problem was addressed by the creation of the original Form T-1, which would have been the last piece in the transparency puzzle. However, in 2004 the AFL-CIO counter-attacked by suing the Department of Labor to invalidate the form, and won.
Currently, there are literally tens of billions of dollars in unaccountable and unmonitored trusts being control by union bosses. Healthcare, retiree’s pension plans and other safeguards are in the hands of organizations whose members have been convicted of crimes involving embezzlement and other financial improprieties.
While American corporations are forced to be accountable to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the unions are able to slither through the loopholes in OLMS enforcement and hide billions of dollars. The Form T-1 will help give the OLMS, an agency that has faced disastrous budget cuts by this Congress, despite an over 600 percent increase in compliance audits from 2001 to 2007, the necessary tools to ensure union financial transparency.
Where the OLMS has had less success is in “trust” reporting. Besides collecting dues monies and other regular revenues, unions are in the position to run multiemployer pension plans, VEBA health funds, and other pots of money. Unions have routinely used this money for politics, leveraged it against corporate America, and just plain skimmed off the top.
The Form T-1 is where unions are supposed to disclose how they use the billions upon billions of dollars they control (especially on the pension side). Unfortunately, unions have succeeded in stopping any efforts to increase transparency on their large coffers of unaccountable trust funds.
The Form T-1 is the crux in union financial transparency that will ultimately lead to increased accountability and shed light on the shadows where union corruption hides. I fully support this disclosure document and urge approval of the Form T-1 so that the OLMS will have the necessary tools to ensure union financial transparency.
Sincerely,
Brian M Johnson,
Director of Policy
