WHILE THE OVERNIGHT “SLUMBER PARTY” in the Senate made headlines Tuesday night, a vote that night in the House on an amendment to the Department of Labor appropriations bill was largely ignored, but its significance was anything but trivial.
House and Senate Democrats set their sights on a branch of the Labor Department that regulates and monitors union activity, the Office of Labor-Management Standards, and decided that the agency’s proposed budget for FY 2008 should be cut by some 20 percent. This move would actually reduce the amount that was appropriated to OLMS in FY 2007.
Rep. John Kline of Minnesota’s 2nd District, a Republican, introduced an amendment that would restore funding for the OLMS to the 2007 level, but it failed by a vote of 237 to 186. The vote tally contained a few surprising (and some not-so-surprising) switches of the aisle, with some Democrats from moderate districts–and twice as many Republicans with sizeable union constituencies–abandoning the party line.
While organized labor is one of the Democratic party’s largest contributors, giving $56.7 million in the 2006 midterm elections, some Democrats couldn’t side with them in this battle. Eight Democrats voted with the Republicans. Many of them were vulnerable freshmen from relatively conservative districts. Brad Ellsworth from Indiana’s 8th District; Harry Mitchell from Arizona’s 5th District, and North Carolina’s Heath Shuler (11th District) all voted in favor of the amendment. So did Rep. Tim Mahoney, from Florida’s 16th District (Mark Foley’s district), who is listed as one of political scientist Larry Sabato’s “Freshman Fifteen”, a group facing an uphill reelection battle. None of their offices responded to requests for comment.
And 16 Republicans sided with the majority and struck down the bill, which was a little more unanticipated. Ray LaHood from the 18th District of Illinois, a conservative on most issues, supporting free trade and voting against the Employee Free Choice Act (both anti-union positions), didn’t vote in lockstep with his party this time. The EFCA would have allowed unions to represent employees if a majority of them signed cards authorizing a union, instead of if a majority had voted in favor of unionization through a secret-ballot election.
Mark Kirk, another Illinois representative who hails from the upper-middle class 10th District, holds the same record as LaHood, but also voted against the Kline amendment. Neither representative’s office supplied explanations when requested.
Fellow Illinoisan Peter Roskam, a freshman who replaced staunch conservative Henry Hyde in the 6th District, also voted against the Employee Free Choice Act, but against the Kline amendment just a few months later. Roskam released a statement through his press secretary, Matthew Vriesema, saying, among other things, “In Illinois 16 percent of workers are unionized and I am proud to advocate for their best interests.”
Of the 16 Republicans, only half voted for the Employee Free Choice Act, with a sizable New Jersey contingent voting in favor: Frank LoBiondo from the 2nd District, James Saxton of the 3rd District, Chris Smith of the 4th District, and Michael Ferguson of the 7th District. An even smaller percentage voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement in July 2005; of the 15 in office at the time, only five opposed the measure. Only one Democrat crossed party lines once for either vote–Dan Boren from Oklahoma’s 2nd District, who voted against the Employee Free Choice Act, but also against CAFTA.
The current legislation, titled the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2008 (H.R. 3043), contains an excess $11 billion compared to the Bush administration’s request for these departments for FY 2008, and about $935 million extra for the Labor Department alone. But the Democrats’ plan for OLMS, which is exactly the same in the House and the Senate, is to reduce the funding request by $11 million, from about $56.9 million to $45.7 million. This is the same level that OLMS received in 2006, and lower than this year’s $47.8 million–in the midst of a continuing resolution–which requires the budget be held at the same level as, or just slightly higher than, the year before.
The House passed the bill Thursday evening, sans Kline’s amendment, 276 to 140. Only one Democrat, Melissa Bean, voted against the bill. The Senate approved a comparable bill late last month. OLMS stands as the only enforcement agency in the Labor Department to face cuts; all the rest are receiving more funds.
OLMS is such a ripe target because its operations pose a huge headache for labor unions, or at least that’s the case according to labor unions. Bill Samuel, national legislative director of the AFL-CIO, told me several months ago that recent OLMS reforms amount to “not much more than harassment” and a “huge waste of time and money.”
In December 2002, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao proposed increased and updated disclosure requirements for large labor unions on their financial paperwork, called LM-2 forms, which were officially introduced in July 2004. The original regulations hadn’t been reformed since the 1959 Landrum-Griffin Act, which, ironically, received noteworthy support at the time from Sen. Ted Kennedy.
One administration official said the cuts in the OLMS budget were “even more egregious” than the Employee Free Choice Act, which failed a cloture vote in the Senate at the end of June by nine votes.
Aside from the failed cloture vote, President Bush had vowed to veto the EFCA, and without a veto-proof majority in the House and Senate, the EFCA is more or less DOA. Similarly, the White House has threatened a veto on H.R. 3043. In a Statement of Administration Policy released on Tuesday, the Office of Management and Budget detailed reasons the Bush administration opposes the bill, one of them being that the cuts to the OLMS “would seriously weaken the agency’s ability to improve union transparency and strengthen financial integrity.”
Despite this, some Democrats argue that the Kline amendment comes at the expense of other priorities. Rep. Roskam also noted in his statement, “The amendment purposed taking $2 million from the International Labor Account. The ILA is important because it oversees child labor standards and ensures our competitors are not using children in the conduct of labor when competing with the U.S. and our manufacturing industry.”
Part of the International Labor Organization earmark from the Bureau of International Labor Affairs would be reduced, but this is not a cut. The Bush administration requested $14 million for this budget, which was increased to $72 million by Democrats. So a decrease in $2 million is more than offset by a $58 million hike.
Administration officials also contend that OLMS has made significant progress in enforcing regulations that promote transparency and financial integrity, but there is still much room for improvement. According to the Department of Labor, there have been some 760 convictions in the last six years by OLMS for stealing union funds, a 26 percent increase, and over $70 million worth of restitution has been court ordered.
However, officials note that the SEC has policed corporations much more thoroughly since the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, but the depth and breadth of paperwork, documentation, and third-party oversight for unions pale in comparison. For example, unions, unlike public corporations, don’t have to secure a certified audit, and OLMS was only able to audit 4.6 percent of the 15,800 unions that filed LM-2 and LM-3 forms last year.
Public disclosure on the Internet has also been greatly enhanced by OLMS reforms. Anyone can log onto the site and browse records that would have been inaccessible previously. You can find out that the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers owns and operates a Learjet, and that $1.8 million was spent on equipment, maintenance, and pilots in 2006, or that the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters loaned almost $29 million total to the Hillcrest Country Club in 2005 and 2006, and reported $0 in fixed assets with the club in 2005.
However amusing this may be, both sides are taking the proposed cuts to OLMS with the utmost seriousness, and they’re both gearing up for a heated face-off.
Whitney Blake is a business reporter at The Washington Examiner.
