Report: Labor Department Double Standard Lets Union-Busters Off Hook

by James Parks, Oct 30, 2008

In a classic case of a double standard, the Bush administration’s Labor Department is harassing, discrediting and trying to weaken unions by requiring them to file extremely detailed financial reports while letting companies that use labor consultants (better known as union-busters) off the hook from filing required reports on how much they paid the “consultants.”   

Companies that have not filed the required forms include such notorious anti-union firms as Fortuna, the Taiwan-based owner of the Hilton Hotel at Los Angeles International Airport, the only hotel in the area that refuses to abide by a city ordinance to pay its employees a “living wage.” And then there’s Maryland-based Case Farms Chicken, which spent more than $200,000 to assist in blocking union organizing efforts at its poultry farms and plants in North Carolina and Ohio. 

The Center for American Progress (CAP) examined the records of four anti-labor consulting firms for the years 2005 and 2006. Of the 189 clients listed by the four firms—Kulture Consulting, The Bennett Law Firm, Cruz & Associates and Labor Information Services—only 46 filed the reports with the Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS) despite the fact that they are required to do so under the same law as unions and are subject to the same criminal penalties. Yet none of the delinquent companies has been prosecuted.  

Says Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at CAP:

OLMS is a case study in how the management of even the more obscure niches of government under the Bush administration has fallen into the hands of people who have little regard for the programs they are charged with administering or the laws they are expected to enforce. Worse still, it is an example of how widespread the abuses of the regulatory and prosecutorial powers of government have become in the furtherance of partisan gain. 

Lilly says that following fiscal year 2004, audits of labor unions have increased by 50 percent. In addition, the OLMS has issued new regulations, which greatly increase the level of detail required in reports by unions and union officers. Yet as CAP’s analysis shows, although the four anti-labor firms collected $6.7 million in fees in 2005 and 2006, their clients only reported paying $1.5 million. 

Lilly concludes:  

The bottom line is that OLMS enforcement of business reporting has been so lax no one has any idea how much anti-union consulting is taking place, what employers are engaging in it, how much is being spent, or what it is being spent on. The asymmetry between what is being demanded of unions with threats of fines and jail time for noncompliance and what is being tolerated from employers with little or no apparent expectation of compliance is stunning. 

The next administration may have many lofty policy goals, but none will be more important or more daunting than restoring the fundamental competence and integrity of government agencies. 

Click here to read more on the study.

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