Here at Freedom@Work, we've spent some time documenting the Obama Administration's efforts to gut basic union transparency guidelines under the guise of saving money. We've also urged concerned readers to get involved to help stop the Department of Labor from rolling back transparency requirements aimed at curbing Big Labor's corrupt practices. Unfortunately, the worst may be yet to come -- the Administration has just announced its potential plans to close the Employment Standards Administration, an office tasked with rooting out union corruption:

The Obama Administration has found a way to cut $100 million from the federal budget and one of the items on the chopping block is an office inside the Department of Labor that conducts oversight of labor unions.

Pursuant to President Obama’s April order that federal agencies come up with away to eliminate $100 million in wasteful spending, White House Budget Chief Peter Orzsag and Cabinet Secretary Christopher Lu issued a 20-page list of items to cut to the president on Monday.

One of the proposed cost-saving measures is the disbanding of the Employment Standards Administration (page 11 in the link), an office in the Department of Labor that has the power to audit and investigate labor unions for corruption and embezzlement.

While transparency is no substitute for rolling back union bosses' many government-granted privileges, the Administration's eagerness to give its Big Labor allies a free pass on financial disclosure shows a callous disregard for the rank-and-file workers whose money union bosses are spending. So long as workers across the country are being forced to pay union dues just to keep their jobs, they should be getting more information about how their seized dues are being spent, not less.

Right to Work Foundation Urges Department of Labor Not to Trash Union Disclosure Rules

Obama Administration seems primed to make it easier for union bosses to hide lucrative perks from rank-and-file workers

Washington, DC (March 9, 2009) – Prompted by a Rahm Emanuel directive on Inauguration Day, the U.S. Department of Labor seems ready to discard new union disclosure rules developed over two years by the previous administration.

In response, the National Right to Work Foundation has submitted comments urging the Department to maintain or strengthen rules aimed at curbing union boss corruption.

In late January, the Department of Labor announced that it was considering changes to recently revised LM-2 disclosure guidelines, which require unions to list the specific compensation – financial or otherwise – of individual union officers and to name all parties involved in any union-related transactions. Unions routinely spend millions of dollars on staff compensation, purchases unrelated to collective bargaining, and lavish perks for top union officials. The disclosure requirements are intended to ensure that dues-paying workers have some idea what they’re paying for . . .

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Click here to read the entire release. The Foundation submitted comments opposing any rescission of existing disclosure regulations, which are available here (.pdf).