 |
|
April
8, 2003, 2:00 p.m.
Union
Rules
Full
disclosure may soon come to the labor movement.
|
|
 he
Labor Department is trying to make America's largest labor unions make
detailed reports on how they spend their members' money. The department's
proposal has union leaders hopping mad — and in a letter sent to
Labor secretary Elaine Chao yesterday, 28 Republican congressmen sided
with the unions.
Under current law,
unions are required to file annual reports so that their members can see
how their dues are spent. But the current disclosure forms provide little
useful information to members. Union officials can list $3.9 million in
"sundry expenses," or $62 million in "grants to joint projects
with state and local affiliates," without providing any further information.
The forms also make it impossible to determine the full compensation that
union leaders receive.
Many unions are unable,
or unwilling, to abide by even these weak requirements. They file their
reports late, or file sloppy reports, or don't file at all. Scanty though
it is, the information appears to be valued by many people. Labor Department
officials say that since they have started posting the forms online, the
relevant pages have gotten 425,000 hits a month.
Over the last decade,
funding for audits of unions has been slashed. Still, the Labor Department
has been convicting union officials for corruption, getting an average
11 convictions a month for the last five years. Two recent union scandals
— one involving a Washington, D.C., teachers union and another a
union insurance fund — have received press attention, but most of
these scandals have not.
The unions have pushed
hard for financial regulations that would ensure "transparency, accountability,
and full and accurate disclosure" from corporations. But what is
vital for investors and employees is apparently unnecessary for union
members. The unions claim that comprehensive reporting would be costly
and onerous. (The department has pledged to provide the unions with free
software to make compliance easier.) Last year, Senator Tom Harkin tried
to block the Labor Department from spending any money to develop tighter
regulations.
It's often said that
the White House, intent on courting union leaders, disapproves of the
Labor Department's efforts to fight union corruption. That was the gist
of some of the reporting when Secretary Chao and union leaders exchanged
some tough words at the AFL-CIO's winter meeting. But both Labor Department
and White House sources tell me that there is no disagreement on the need
for more disclosure from the unions.
Those congressional
Republicans who value their union ties are another matter. Rep. Jack Quinn
of New York got 27 of his Republican colleagues to join him in asking
Chao to withdraw her proposal. A lot of the Republicans from New York,
New Jersey, and Pennsylvania signed the letter; also Reps. Jo Ann Emerson
of Missouri, Jerry Lewis of California, Don Young of Alaska, and Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida.
Senator Arlen Specter,
the Pennsylvania Republican, now holds the position that Harkin held in
the last Congress: chairman of the labor-appropriations subcommittee.
Tomorrow Specter will be running a hearing of the subcommittee in which
Chao's proposed regulations may come up. Specter would not be out of place
among Quinn and his colleagues. But he is also facing a primary challenge
from conservative Pat Toomey. It will be interesting to see which way
he comes down: against full disclosure or for it.
|
<% dim printurl
printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%>
