"Federal Worker Unions & Allies Protest Trump Executive Orders at #RedforFeds Rally", by AFGE, CC BY 2.0
A simple but profound truth underpins the struggle for worker empowerment: knowledge is our greatest strength. For workers to effectively organize unions and engage in collective bargaining, they need to understand the forces arrayed against working families, including the dollars spent, the consultants hired, and the tactics deployed to oppose those efforts. However, for decades, much of the information workers are entitled to has been intentionally obscured. Under federal law, employers and the anti-union consultants and law firms they hire (known by critics as “union-busters” or “persuaders”) are legally required to disclose their activities to the U.S. Department of Labor. But a new report from our non-profit watchdog LaborLab reveals a chronic, systemic failure to report with little to no enforcement from the agency tasked with ensuring compliance.
LaborLab’s report, entitled “One-Sided Transparency: The Growing Gap Between Required Annual Union Versus Employer and Persuader Filings and OLMS Compliance Efforts Continues to Widen,” uncovers a stark and troubling reality: the federal Department of Labor, through the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS), dedicates vast resources to policing the financial reporting of labor unions while effectively looking the other way when it comes to employer union-busting activities. This imbalance isn't a recent development; it is a problem that has persisted for at least 40 years, documented by a 1984 Congressional report and recently reconfirmed by the Department of Labor’s own Inspector General.
Labor Law by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0
The Law and Its Loopholes
The law provides a straightforward disclosure system requiring both employers and their hired persuaders to report anti-union activities. The Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA) requires employers to file an annual Form LM-10 documenting any spending on “persuader” activities, for example, organizing anti-union meetings or distributing fliers designed to discourage unionization. The persuaders themselves are also required to file a Form LM-20 almost immediately after they are hired. These forms are meant to provide a public window into the shadowy world of union avoidance. The law is clear, and the triggers for filing are simple. If a persuader files a single LM-20 form – a short report about a persuader agreement – it triggers the requirement for them to file an annual LM-21, in which the persuader must disclose how much they received from each employer for their union avoidance activities. It’s a straightforward and basic mechanism for transparency.
Yet, the system is failing spectacularly. A key finding from the report is the profound underreporting of both employers’ payments to persuaders and annual persuader reports. For 2024, there were 149 employers who should have filed an LM-10 to disclose their payments to persuaders. As of July 31, 2024, only 54—or just over one-third—had done so. This represents a non-filing rate of 66% six months after the forms were due. The money reported by the few employers who did file totaled just over $6 million, a figure that pales in comparison to the annual spending on union-busting activities, which is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. This gap suggests a massive black hole of unaccounted-for anti-union spending that shelters employers from public and legal scrutiny.
The persuader consultants are no more compliant. The LaborLab analysis found that barely 40% of persuaders that were obligated to file a 2024 LM-21 report had done so. A significant number of the reports that were submitted were also deficient, for example, providing only partial year reports or incomplete information. These deficiencies, while seemingly minor, erode the integrity of the disclosure system and make it even more difficult for the public and labor organizations to track the full scope of anti-union campaigns. The problem is so widespread that LaborLab has taken to numbering its complaints about non-disclosure and incomplete disclosures to the OLMS just to keep track.
A Tale of Two Standards
The core of the problem, as highlighted by the LaborLab report and its historical antecedents, is a severe and persistent double standard in enforcement. The LMRDA was designed to bring transparency to both labor unions and employers. Yet, by not taking action against persuaders and employers who have failed to file their annual disclosures, the OLMS has prioritized one side over the other.
This is not the product of a lack of tools or authority. The OLMS has a range of enforcement measures available to it, including opening investigations, auditing reports, and creating voluntary compliance programs for unions. Yet, despite the proven success of these tools and the significantly smaller number of employer and persuader filings to monitor, the OLMS has failed to use these same measures to enforce the law on the employer side. It continues to ignore detailed complaints and spreadsheets provided by groups like LaborLab that identify specific instances of non-compliance.
This imbalance is not just a bureaucratic quirk; it has real-world consequences. By neglecting to enforce employer and persuader reporting, the OLMS allows a crucial piece of the labor-management relationship to remain in the shadows. Workers’ organizing and bargaining power suffers as a result. Without access to accurate information, workers are at a significant disadvantage. They are often unaware of the sophisticated and well-funded campaigns being waged against them.
The information gap created by the OLMS’ non-enforcement enables a culture where non-compliance isn't just tolerated, but effectively encouraged. For example, anti-union consultants often refuse to identify themselves leading workers to believe they are neutral parties, such as experts from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) simply in the workplace to answer questions. Without the required disclosures, workers have no way of knowing who they are actually speaking with.
Furthermore, a lack of transparency means workers may not know they are being surveilled. This is because employers are legally obligated to disclose when they hire consultants to monitor employees. Without this critical information, workers are left in the dark about who is tracking their activities and why.
Finally, knowing the financial commitments of an employer is a powerful piece of information. When workers are considering forming a union, they have the right to know how much their employer is willing to spend to fight that effort. This knowledge is key to understanding the full scope of the campaign against them and helps them prepare and strategize effectively.
The result of this systemic failure is a system that holds organized labor to a high standard of accountability while granting corporate interests and their henchmen a free pass on their anti-union spending and activities, ultimately defeating the LMRDA’s intent to provide transparency for workers.
"Stop Union Busting", rochelle hartman, CC BY 2.0
A Call to Action and a Path Forward
The LaborLab report concludes with a simple, direct, and urgent call to action: OLMS must fulfill its legal obligations by devoting the same level of effort and resources to securing employer and persuader reports as it does to union filings. The persistent lack of progress from the previous year’s report makes it clear that this is a systemic failure, not an isolated oversight.
This is not just about paperwork; it is about a foundational principle of fairness and transparency in labor relations. Without accurate and complete reporting, workers are at a significant disadvantage, unable to fully comprehend the sophisticated and well-funded campaigns being waged against them. The findings should serve as a wake-up call, not just for OLMS but for the entire labor movement and its allies. The traditional path of unionization through the NLRB is already a difficult one. When this path is further complicated by a lack of transparency and a failure of regulatory enforcement, it becomes an even more formidable challenge.
The solution is not just a matter of changing a few procedures; it's a matter of rebalancing the scales of justice. The data in the LaborLab report proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the scales are currently tipped heavily in favor of employers and union-busters. It is time for OLMS to correct this imbalance and for all stakeholders to demand the transparency that the law promises, but the government has so far failed to deliver.
