In tomorrow’s Federal Register, the Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) will issue a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) (pdf) on its plans to amend regulations under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) requiring labor organizations to file the annual financial disclosure Form T-1, (pdf) Trust Annual Report, about certain trusts in which they are interested. Unions use Form T-1 to disclose financial information about these trusts, such as assets, liabilities, receipts and disbursements. According to a summary of the NPRM, the DOL seeks to amend these regulations on the grounds that the current trust reporting requirement is overly broad and not necessary to prevent the circumvention and evasion of the Title II reporting requirements, which require labor organizations “to disclose its financial condition and operations.” In addition, the DOL considers separate trust reporting requirements as unnecessary, in part because the Department also proposes to return “subsidiary organization” reporting to the Form LM-2 reporting requirements, which it believes is necessary to satisfy the purposes of the LMRDA. Finally, the DOL takes the position that in interpreting the LMRDA’s definition of “labor organization,” the statute’s coverage does not include “intermediate bodies that are wholly composed of public sector organizations.”

The OLMS seeks public comment on the above proposals. All comments must be received on or before April 5, 2010, and include the identification number: RIN 1215-AB75. Written comments may be sent or hand-delivered to: Denise M. Boucher, Director of the Office of Policy, Reports and Disclosure, Office of Labor-Management Standards, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Room N–5609, Washington, DC 20210. Alternatively, comments may be submitted via the federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov.

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