Union transparency rules are only as strong as their enforcement

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The AFL-CIO just became the latest labor organization to fight against reforms that would help rank-and-file union members find out how union officials spend their money.

The union sued the U.S. Department of Labor last week, claiming it and other large unions were “blindsided” by “sweeping changes” in a new financial disclosure rule finalized by the federal government.

A federation of 65 unions representing 15 million workers, the AFL-CIO is a bellwether for the nation’s union culture — and on transparency, it is broadcasting a message of fierce resistance. As an attorney who represents public workers harmed by union misconduct, I am not surprised. I would also add a warning: My clients learned they cannot assume union officials will follow transparency laws, new or old, or that government officials will even enforce them.

Consider Connecticut. Since 1957, state law has required public-sector unions to file annual financial reports with the labor commissioner. Unions must make those reports readily available to members, who also have the right to ask the state to audit them. In theory, the law empowers public workers, many of whom pay around $1,000 or more in dues every year, to see how union officials are spending their money.

This should make it harder for union officials to misuse workers’ money without detection. But most unions have never filed the required reports — and for years, state officials didn’t seem to care. Connecticut’s labor commissioner even previously acknowledged that she did not plan to enforce the law because she did not think it was worth her staff’s time.

That struck a chord with my clients: state corrections officer Ryan Bilodeau and Professor Earl Ormond, both of whom are lifelong union members who wanted to find out how their unions were spending members’ money.

Bilodeau, a former union shop steward, spent years asking his corrections officers’ union, an AFSCME affiliate, for credit card statements and detailed information about political spending and paid union leave — to no avail. “When you can’t get straight answers about where your money is going, your trust in the union starts to break down,” Bilodeau says.

Ormond, a retired police officer who now oversees the criminal justice program at a local community college, was frustrated by his faculty union’s growing involvement in political issues, including its activism against immigration enforcement and its passage of a resolution accusing Israel of “genocide” and “apartheid,” which he believed to be rooted in antisemitism. Ormond wants to find out how much money his union is spending to prop up these controversial political campaigns, “even if it requires the Connecticut Department of Labor to do some paperwork.”

Only after Ormond and Bilodeau sued their unions to compel them to follow the law did the agency finally start doing some of that “paperwork.” Last month, the department sent public-sector unions in the state a notice reminding them to follow the law, and it created an apparently new online portal for them to file the required financial reports.

The department’s official guidance also said that unions must provide employees with hard copies of the reports and hold a meeting to discuss them.

My clients are pleased that the state has taken the first steps toward enforcing a law that has been on the books since the Eisenhower administration. But they are cautiously waiting to see what happens next — for example, will the state go after unions that don’t comply?

Their experience should serve as a warning beyond Connecticut. Alongside the new federal disclosure rules, many states have recently advanced or passed reforms intended to empower public employees with new ways to hold union officials accountable. Florida, for instance, recently adopted a law to ensure public unions maintain verifiable support from the workers they want to represent.

In Idaho, a newly enacted law prohibits school districts both from taking dues straight out of teachers’ paychecks and sending them to the union and from sharing teachers’ personal data with the union without their permission.

A proposed Arizona constitutional amendment would also ban automatic payroll deductions from teachers. Oklahoma lawmakers have advanced legislation that lets teachers resign their union membership whenever they wish, instead of waiting for narrow opt-out windows that can lock employees into membership and dues payments.

But whether at the state or federal level, a right that depends on union officials voluntarily respecting it, or on government officials deciding it is worth their time to enforce, is not much of a right at all. Union-represented employees should know that it may be up to them to assert their rights and enforce the law when no one else will.

Nathan McGrath is president and general counsel at the Fairness Center, a nonprofit, public interest law firm that provides free legal representation to those hurt by public-sector union officials.

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