OLMS

Obama's a Budget Hawk! But Only Slashes Budget of Watchdog Agency Over Union Corruption

Will Collins — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:39:04 -0400

For all the talk of "restoring labor standards," the Obama Administration is cutting four million dollars from the Office of Labor and Management Standards' (OLMS) already small budget for 2010 (see page 13 of the budget appendix under "Employment Standards Administration").

Obama's Union Buddies Have Their Own Private Jets to Fly to Las Vegas (and Ireland)

Nick Cote — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:43:49 -0500

In all the recent "stimulus" hoopla, President Barack Obama and Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman have found themselves in something of a war of words:

Sin City's mayor wants President Barack Obama to apologize for saying companies shouldn't visit Las Vegas on the taxpayer's dime.

Oscar Goodman spoke after a regular scheduled meeting with tourism officials where he expressed concern that federal lawmakers might be discouraging travel to the city...

"You can't get corporate jets, you can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime," Obama said.

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Worker Advocate Warns Against Plans to Table Improvements in Union Financial Disclosure

Nick Cote — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:35:15 -0500

This week, National Right to Work Foundation president Mark Mix sent a formal letter to the director of the Department of Labor's Office of Labor-Management Standards, the federal agency tasked with providing union members and nonmembers with valuable information about how union bosses are spending their forced dues.

The letter is in response to the Obama Administration's apparent intention to delay (and ultimately cancel) some needed refinements to reporting requirements established by the Bush Administration which enhance union transparency and accountability of union expenditures.

Here are a few examples of union boss malfeasance the planned LM-2 revisions would elucidate:

DOL's Revised Union Trust Disclosure Rules Leave Major Loopholes -- And Even DOL Admits It!

Stefan Gleason — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 10:28:21 -0400

Yesterday, the Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) posted on its website a weak final rule which revises standards governing disclosure of certain expenditures of union trusts, including union pension funds, strike funds, and credit unions.

Earlier this year, OLMS sought comments from interested parties concerning the new standards. On April 14, Glenn Taubman, staff attorney at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and counsel for the National Right to Work Committee, submitted comments regarding the gaping "sensitive information" loophole which allows union bosses to hide the very waste, fraud, and corruption that are all too common in these notoriously mismanaged and underfunded union trusts: