DOL Proposes Changes to Financial Reporting Requirements

Within the wake of a high-profile corruption scandal involving the United Auto Employees Worldwide Union (UAW), the Division of Labor (DOL) introduced on September 30 a Discover of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) designed to “improve and improve monetary transparency for unions regulated by the Labor-Administration Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959.”

The UAW scandal noticed greater than a dozen former union officers and a number of other former automotive executives plead responsible to numerous costs arising from a sample of bribery and the diversion of union funds for private use by union officers and others. In its introduction to the proposed regulatory modifications, the DOL observes that a lot of the unlawful conduct at situation within the UAW scandal was facilitated by or hid by false and insufficient monetary reporting by union officers. The DOL concludes that there could also be a hyperlink between inadequate reporting and disclosure necessities, on the one hand, and felony conduct on the opposite. The DOL’s proposed modifications, in the event that they turn into regulation, will present members of labor organizations with extra and extra detailed details about the monetary actions of unions and can allow members to look at whether or not the union’s priorities align with its structure, in addition to the member’s personal priorities and people of fellow members.

Amongst different modifications, the DOL’s proposal gives for a long-form model of the annual monetary report known as the Type LM-2, which unions with $250,000 in annual receipts at the moment should file. The lengthy kind, which shall be known as the LM-2 LF, would apply solely to unions with annual receipts of $eight million or extra. This fashion, the brand new regulation targets the biggest and most distinguished labor unions. The brand new disclosure kind would require labor organizations to determine any officers or staff who have been paid $10,000 or extra by the reporting group and who additionally obtained $10,000 or extra as an officer or worker of one other labor group in gross salaries, allowances, and different direct and oblique disbursements through the reporting interval.

The DOL believes that this variation will assist determine conflicts of curiosity and can facilitate monitoring funds that could be transferred from one union to a different. One other proposed disclosure focuses on the existence and quantity of strike funds. A strike fund is used to cowl the fundamental monetary wants of placing union members and has been significantly prone to abuses, equivalent to embezzlement. Requiring the quantity of the fund to be disclosed to union members will permit them to evaluate the well being of the union and monitor the amount of cash accessible within the fund.

The general public may have 60 days from the date the proposal is revealed within the Federal Register to touch upon the DOL’s proposed modifications. The DOL already has acknowledged that, whereas a few of the elevated reporting necessities undoubtedly will improve monetary transparency, there are countervailing points that must be thought of for which remark shall be important. For instance, the proposed strike fund disclosures could give employers visibility into info they’ll use to their benefit in negotiations with the unions.

Given the character of the proposed modifications and the impression they are going to have on union members and employers alike, reactions and feedback to the DOL’s proposed modifications are prone to be intently monitored by each teams.