Department of Labor April 21, 2009 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposes to withdraw a rule published in the Federal Register on January 21, 2009, pertaining to the filing by labor organizations of the Form LM-2, an annual financial report required by the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, as amended (LMRDA). On February 3, 2009, the Department's Employment Standards Administration (ESA) Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) published a request for comments about issues of law and policy raised by this rule (74 FR 5899), consistent with directions from the new Administration to review all regulations that had not yet become effective. On February 20, 2009, the Department of Labor postponed the effective date of this rule until April 21, 2009, to allow additional time for the Department to review comments received pursuant to the earlier notice, which were due by March 5, 2009, and to permit labor unions to delay development and implementation of costly changes to their accounting and recordkeeping systems and procedures pending this review. A further extension of the rule's effective date and an extension of the rule's applicability date were proposed on March 19, 2009, and the effective date is delayed until October 19, 2009 in a document published elsewhere in this issue of the Federal Register. Upon consideration of the comments received on questions of law and policy raised by the January 21 rule, the Department proposes its withdrawal, because the rule was issued without an adequate review of the Department's experience under the relatively recent revisions to Form LM-2 in 2003 and because the comments indicate that the Department may have underestimated the increased burden that would be placed on reporting labor organizations by the January 21 rule. Finally, the Department has concluded, based on the comments received, that the provisions related to the revocation of a small union's authorization to file a simpler form because it has been delinquent or deficient in filing that form are not based upon realistic assessments of such a union's ability to file the more complex form and are unlikely to achieve the intended goals of greater transparency and disclosure.