The House Cuts OLMS Funding by $2 Million
AWF and several partner groups all across the country are putting together a coalition letter to the Senate to restore full funding, as requested by the President, to the OLMS. Stay tuned for the release of that letter in the coming days. For more on the issue, read the following article by our friend James Sherk at the Heritage Foundation. Keep up the good fight James!
Laboring Against Working Americans: Congress Should Not Cut the Office of Labor-Management Standards
On Labor Day, Americans traditionally celebrate organized labor's role in fighting for better working conditions, but some labor leaders misuse their positions for personal benefit. Since 2001, government investigators have charged hundreds of senior union officials with embezzling their members' dues, and now unions are using their influence in Congress to reduce the budget of the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS), the department in charge of investigating union corruption. Congress should not cut funding to the OLMS. Instead, Congress should stand up for working Americans and protect them from union leaders who treat members' dues as their personal property.
Organized Labor Has Lost Its Way
Union officials are using their political clout with the Democratic Congress to cut the funding of the one agency charged with holding them accountable to their members. The House of Representatives recently voted to cut the $48 million budget of the Office of Labor-Management Standards by $2 million, even as it increased funding for the rest of the Department of Labor by $900 million more than the President requested. The OLMS was singled out for budget cuts because its efforts to increase union accountability and fight corruption have rankled union leaders.
One hundred and twenty-five years after the first Labor Day parade in 1882, it is clear that some union leaders view themselves as champions of their own pocketbooks, not their members' well-being.
