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WASHINGTON – Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee Chairman Bob Good (R-VA) sent a letter to Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su requesting information about how the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) enforces disclosure requirements for “worker centers.” These so-called worker centers have increasingly become front groups controlled by Big Labor, performing functions similar to labor unions while evading disclosure requirements in the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA).
 
This letter follows changes to the OLMS Interpretive Manual (Manual), which guides OLMS employees in administering the LMRDA. The latest edition includes a section addressing whether worker centers are considered labor organizations and lists specific centers exempt from LMRDA requirements. This change to the Manual raises concerns that OLMS has effectively exempted these organizations from the law's disclosure rules.
 
In the letter, Foxx and Good write: “The Manual … states that OLMS has analyzed several worker centers and, based on its analysis, found that the listed organizations ‘did not demonstrate that they existed for the purpose of dealing with employers, either through statements in their governing documents or through an actual or attempted pattern of dealing.’”
 
The lawmakers continue: “In other words, Biden-Harris officials within OLMS seem to have exempted several worker centers from LMRDA disclosure requirements by listing them by name in the text of the manual. This is concerning because determining whether an organization is a labor union is supposed to be a fact-based analysis based on a ‘pattern or practice.’ If OLMS is exempting these worker centers from disclosure requirements, this undermines the analytical framework for determining whether an organization is a labor union based on examining the patterns or practices of the organization over time. It is improper for the Manual to exempt these specific organizations from disclosure requirements prospectively.”
 
The lawmakers conclude by requesting that Acting Secretary Su provide additional information, including:

• An explanation of why OLMS chose the specific worker centers that it listed in section 030.613 of the Manual.
• An explanation of the methodology that OLMS used in evaluating each of the worker centers listed in section 030.613 of the Manual and OLMS’s analysis for each.
• An explanation of the circumstances in which OLMS initiated its analyses for the worker centers listed in section 030.613 of the Manual.
  • Did OLMS perform these analyses as part of a formalized proceeding?
  • Did these worker centers request that OLMS provide technical assistance or an advisory opinion? If so, state which worker centers requested technical assistance or an advisory opinion.
  • Did OLMS choose to analyze any worker centers listed in section 030.613 of the Manual without first receiving a request for technical assistance or for an advisory opinion? If so, state which worker centers listed in section 030.613 of the Manual did not request technical assistance or an advisory opinion.
• An explanation of whether the Manual exempts the worker centers listed in section 030.613 from disclosure requirements without further analysis. 

To read the full letter, click here.