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HOW MUCH DO COMPANIES SPEND ON UNION-BUSTERS?  
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Celine McNicholas and Bob Funk
May 22, 2024
Economic Policy Institute
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_ The Department of Labor has improved reporting requirements and
enforcement—but more is needed _

‘March Against Union-Busting Billionaires’ June 9, 2022 in New
York City.,

 

Companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year
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professional union-busters to campaign against and defeat union
organizing drives. However, only a fraction of this spending is
publicly reported because of loopholes and other weaknesses in the law
and its enforcement.

A new report
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the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) found that
the Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS)—which oversees and
enforces the union-buster (persuader) reporting requirements—“did
not effectively enforce persuader activity requirements to protect
workers’ rights to unionize.” While the report rightfully explains
that more work must be done, there are many reasons the current OLMS
should be commended for taking meaningful steps toward meeting its
responsibility, and the report should be viewed as a roadmap for the
agency moving forward. 

OLMS is a tiny agency of fewer than 200 employees charged with
enforcing the many provisions of the Labor Management Reporting and
Disclosure Act (LMRDA), which include persuader reporting, union
financial reporting, ensuring fair union elections, certifying
compliance with labor standards as a condition of federal transit
funding, and more. However, since its inception, OLMS has
overwhelmingly prioritized enforcing the LMRDA’s union compliance
provisions while failing to apply the same level of scrutiny required
under the law to employers and union-busters. The Inspector General
(IG) report makes clear that OLMS must begin allocating its resources
more equitably to fulfill its obligation to protect the right of
workers to engage in collective bargaining, mutual aid, and union
representation.

The IG report points out that a large percentage of persuader reports
filed by employers and union-busters are filed delinquent and/or
deficient, and the IG recommends that OLMS improve its systems for
tracking and obtaining timely, complete reports. These recommendations
are spot-on and should be fairly simple to institute. It’s important
to note that OLMS in the past two years has received more than double
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reports compared with prior years due to an increased focus on
compliance efforts (314 in 2021, 747 in 2022). And in perhaps an
unprecedented action, OLMS has sued two corporations—Starbucks and
Amazon—to enforce subpoenas seeking information to determine whether
the companies failed to file required reports. OLMS leadership is
clearly attempting to fulfill its obligations under the law.

The report also faults OLMS for not adequately publicizing its
persuader “tip line” or having adequate procedures for intake and
follow-up on tips. Certainly, greater outreach and awareness about the
tip line is essential as would be stronger systems for responding to
tips. However, it’s important to point out that the tip line is a
new innovation under OLMS’s current leadership that should be
applauded, expanded, and improved. The tip line is a positive example
of the efforts by OLMS in the past few years to increase awareness of
and compliance with persuader reporting requirements.

Most fundamentally, as the report acknowledges, OLMS’s ability to
obtain timely persuader reports from employers and union-busters is
limited by the law and by the resources available to enforce the
persuader reporting requirements. OLMS cannot require reports for
“advice”—a loophole that the Obama administration tried to close
and was thwarted by the courts. OLMS does not have authority to fine
companies for failing to file reports or filing incomplete
reports—it would take congressional action to authorize civil
penalties for non-compliance.

The IG is right to say that more should be done. OLMS should continue
and double down on its efforts to get timely, complete reports from
union-busters. OLMS can and should do more to ensure
stakeholders—employers, union-busters, unions, organizers, and
more—know about the union-buster reporting requirements. OLMS should
also expand its rule requiring employers to indicate whether they are
recipients of federal contract dollars to include grants and loans,
and it should regularly publicize the companies that are recipients of
federal funds and are engaging in union-busting. These steps and
others would help improve compliance with the union-buster reporting
requirements.

_Celine McNicholas is the director of policy and government
affairs/general counsel at the Economic Policy Institute.  Bob Funk
is the founder and director of LaborLab, a national watchdog that
works to protect and promote the right of workers to collectively
bargain._

* union busting
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* Department of Labor
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* labor law enforcement
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