Those prostitutes in the Democratic controlled US Congress
The new Democratic Congress has finally found a government agency whose budget It wants to cut: an obscure Labor Department office that monitors the compliance of unions with federal law.
In the past six years, the Office of Labor Management Standards, or OLMS, has helped secure the convictions of 775 corrupt union officials and court-ordered restitution to union members of over $70 million in dues. The House is set to vote Thursday on a proposal to chop 20% from the OLMS budget. Every other Labor Department enforcement agency is due for a budget increase, and overall the Congress has added $935 million to the Bush administration’s budget request for Labor. The only office the Democrats want to cut back is the one engaged in union oversight.
Although Congress has long insisted on copious reporting by corporations, including the burdens of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, lawmakers have been relatively nonchalant about union reporting. Unlike the quarterly filings of corporations, unions must only file once a year with the Labor Department using a free software program. They don’t have to get an independent certified audit, are only rarely audited by the government, and don’t have to follow standard accounting methods.
OLMS, the Labor office that watches over union disclosure forms, says that last year 93% of unions met its reporting requirements. But the other 7% deserve scrutiny. Union members deserve to know how their dues are spent. They might want to know that in 2005, the National Education Association gave more than $65 million to Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, and dozens of other liberal advocacy groups that have nothing to do with the interests of teachers. In 2006, 49 individuals employed at the national AFL-CIO headquarters were paid more than $130,000. “Union members are also discovering the extent to which their dues money is funding lavish trips for union officials to luxury resorts and other expensive perks unrelated to collective bargaining,” says Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.
With this turd of an idea and the “Forced Unionization Bill” being written and introduced, at least the Dems are giving the union’s their moneys worth by faking the orgasm convincingly
I don’t know about cutting that Labor Dept. office, but I can sure think of one agency that should be shut down. Its a former Treasury Dept. bureau, but it was such an unwanted step-child that it got booted over to Justice. BATFE is the name. Ditch it, fire the workers or transfer them to Thule, Greenland or the DEW Line (yeah, I know, the Line is empty – but someone has to watch it).