Judge: Unions Get Pass on Campaign Reform

Judge: Unions Get Pass on Campaign Reform

Imagine my surprise when I read that the AFL-CIO will not have to reveal it's campaign expenditures for 2004.

I cannot even begin to express my shock that a judge would find a way to allow unions to continue their illegal forcing of members to pay for political ads with which they disagree and to continue their spending millions on political ads without having to report it.

END SARCASM

FOXNews.com - Politics - Union Records Free of Labor Dept. Scrutiny

Gleason said the new rules would have required electronic filing, and greater detail in the accounting of expenditures of more than $5,000. Aside from collective bargaining and organizing costs, filings include the millions of dollars unions spend each year on political activities, lobbying, issue advocacy and administrative overhead.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics (search), labor political action committees have so far given $15 million to candidates in the 2004 election cycle — 83 percent to Democrats, 17 percent to Republicans. That doesn't count soft money raised and spent for political organizing and issue advocacy. . . .

The Department of Labor, which has argued that the new requirements are meant to help members track spending of their union dues, said the filing process has remain unchanged in 40 years, while unions have become bigger and their financial structures more complex so that they now "resemble modern corporations in their structure, scope and complexity."

The Labor Department cited recent examples of union corruption to argue for the new, "functional" reporting that requires extensive detail of big expenditures. It noted that the new requirements followed a lengthy process in which it received 35,000 public comments and made several compromises before the rule changes were made.

"We will continue to work to provide greater financial transparency for the rank-and-file union members of this country," said U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment Standards Victoria Lipnic, shortly after Kessler's ruling.

Gleason said his group will continue to fight to ensure that the new requirements stay in place. Kessler is expected to decide within the next few months on their merits.

"The problem is not that big labor plays politics, it's that big labor plays politics with other people's money," said Gleason. "People deserve to know where their money is actually going."