AFL-CIO sues Bush DOL over reporting rules
WASHINGTON (PAI) - The AFL-CIO has sued President Bush's Labor Department in an effort to overturn its new rules that force union officers - even unpaid ones - and stewards to virtually disclose all of their personal finances.

No date has been set for trial on the suit, filed last month in federal court in D.C., to overturn the rules for LM-30 disclosure reports for unionists. "We're challenging the secretary's authority to issue some of the key provisions of the rule," federation spokeswoman Lane Windham said. The suit calls the rules illegal - because there wasn't enough time to comment on them - and "arbitrary and capricious."

The reasons for the lawsuit include: "Treating stewards and grievance reps as labor union employees who are covered by the rule, requiring reporting of financial transactions from credit unions, and requiring reporting of financial transactions from financial institutions whose employees are represented by the filer's union, that do business with the filer's union, or that do a substantial amount of business with employers whose employees are represented by the filer's union," Windham added.

And the unionist would have to disclose financial "transactions" with any financial institution "that does a substantial part of its business" with firms the union "has organized or is trying to organize," the rules add. The AFL-CIO challenges that, too.

The Bush Labor Department imposed the rules last year. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said on Feb. 4 they would prevent "potential conflicts of interest" involving union officers, stewards and even unionists who serve on safety and health inspection teams. The rules would force millions of unionists to disclose all their banking relationships, loans, mortgages and other transactions.

Such disclosures open unionists' personal finances to firms, corporations, and the Radical Right, because LM-30 filings, like other union filings, are public documents.

The lawsuit says Chao's rule orders that a worker's normal pay must be reported if the worker spends any time at all performing such union duties as handling grievances.

It also says Chao broke the law by requiring unionists to report a normal loan, made by a bank or a credit union member to the union member under the financial institution's normal neutral lending standards. The unionist is required to report the loan if he or she knows - or even suspects - that the financial institution, in its normal business, deals with the union and other members. Chao claims such loans to officers and stewards could be a potential conflict of interest.


GOP kills extension of jobless bennies
WASHINGTON (PAI) - Once again turning their backs on workers, Senate Republicans mustered enough votes on Feb. 6 to delete extended jobless benefits from the $160 billion stimulus package Congress passed the next day.

The 58-41 vote to shut off the Republican talkathon against jobless benefits - and other aid for workers besides tax rebate checks - was shy of the 60 the Democratic-run Senate needed to halt the filibuster. It later passed the package, 81-16.

Forty of 41 "no" votes against more jobless benefits came from Republicans.

The unemployment rate in January was 4.9%, above the 4% rate Bush inherited in February 2001. But prior GOP-run Congresses refused to add 13 more weeks to the 26 weeks of jobless benefits workers were eligible at that time, and since. Democrats, backed by allies including labor, wanted to add those weeks in the stimulus package. Bush and the GOP said "no."

"Working families have seen their purchasing power stripped and their economic well-being eroded by rising unemployment, declining real wages, and rising costs for necessities such as gas, housing, and health care," Change to Win Executive Director Greg Tarpinian wrote senators before the vote. "To be effective, a stimulus package must help those hardest hit by the economic downturn and put money into the hands of those most likely to spend it quickly. The expanded rebate provisions, extensions of unemployment insurance, and increased home heating assistance…fit both of these criteria and should be quickly enacted."