By Mark Gruenberg
PAI Staff Writer

WASHINGTON (PAI) - The Democratic-run House cut funds to a Department of Labor agency that supposedly investigates union corruption.

The reduction in the funds for the Office of Labor-Management Standards left it with $11 million less than what GOP President George W. Bush sought for the year starting Oct. 1. Meanwhile, in action taken on July 17 that funded a massive money bill to provide money for the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services, lawmakers increased funds for all other DOL investigative offices.

The Office of Labor-Management Standards was set up under the 1959 Landrum-Griffin Act to supposedly monitor union finances. The Bush regime has increased its funds by 33 percent, while imposing new and onerous reporting requirements on unions.

Unions now must disclose their spending to the agency, of $5,000 or more, on everything from paychecks to paperclips. Their foes can mine the data. Bush's DOL uses it to construct "corruption" charges. Businesses do not make such disclosures.

House Republicans, pushed by the anti-union National Right to Work Committee, tried to restore $2 million to the agency. They lost, 237-186.

Funding for the union oversight agency has increased by 33 percent over the last four years, and staffing has been increased by 25 percent said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) in responding to the GOP.

"At the same time you've had those large increases," Obey said, "the Wage and Hour Division, which is supposed to enforce protection for workers on minimum wage, overtime and child labor laws, will have seen its staffing drop by over 12 percent since 2001, and the staff level at the Office of Federal Contract Compliance, which protects workers from unfair employment practices by federal contractors, will have dropped by 23 percent.

"What the amendment does is to enrich the one portion of the Labor Department which has been doing very well, thank you, and they have been doing very well while other portions of the Labor Department that are supposed to focus on protecting workers have, in fact, been starved."

Arguing for restoring the funds, sponsoring Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), declared that the Office of Labor-Management Standards "functions like the Securities and Exchange Commission for labor unions. Why should rank-and-file union members not be protected in the same way as individual shareholders of corporations? DOL is not only being denied the increase it asked for; it is being cut to the bone."

Kline tried to pay for his increase for the anti-worker agency by cutting $3 million from the U.S. contribution, via DOL, to the International Labour Organization for its campaigns against child labor and workers' rights abuses. That move died, too.