Americans for Limited Government Counsel testifies before House on Administration’s stripping of union disclosure requirements

March 31st, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government’s General Counsel Nathan Mehrens is testifying in front of the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce’s Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions today on the damage the Obama Administration is doing to the Labor Department’s ability to enforce the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA).

Mehrens testifies that, “even before President Obama was sworn in there were signs that the new Administration would work aggressively to reduce the staff and resources [to enforce the law] as well as to rollback the improvements in transparency that were promulgated under President George W. Bush and Secretary Elaine L. Chao.”

Citing the Obama Labor Department’s immediate freezing of the effective dates of the union transparency reporting requirements, and the rescinding of these requirements, Mehrens makes a compelling case that the Obama Administration was more interested in helping their political allies hide their financial dealings rather than ensure that union member dues monies were used in conformance to the law.

The LMRDA was co-sponsored by Senator John F. Kennedy and was passed in response to union corruption scandals of the 1950’s.

Nathan Mehrens served as counsel to the Labor Department agency responsible for overseeing labor elections and ensuring that labor union member dues were not misused during the George W. Bush administration.

Mehrens is available for media interviews following his testimony. The testimony is available at:www.getliberty.org/files/NPMTestimonyHouseEduWorkforceHearing03-31-11.pdf.

###