Office of Labor-Management Standards 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This rule rescinds the Form T-1, Trust Annual Report, and rescinds its implementing regulations by removing them from the CFR. This form was promulgated by the final rule published in the Federal Register on October 2, 2008 (2008 Form T-1 rule). The Form T-1 was required to be filed by labor organizations about certain trusts in which they are interested pursuant to the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959. Upon further review of the 2008 Form T-1 rule, including the pertinent facts and legally relevant policy considerations surrounding that rulemaking, as well as the comments received from the February 2, 2010, notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to rescind the Form T-1, the Department of Labor (Department) rescinds the rule implementing the Form T-1 because it considers the trust reporting required under the rule to be overly broad and, as structured, is not necessary to prevent circumvention and evasion of the Title II reporting requirements. Additionally, this rule returns ``subsidiary organization'' reporting to the Form LM-2 (Labor Organization Annual Report), which the Department considers to be necessary to satisfy the purposes of the LMRDA, and it clarifies the scope of such reporting in response to comments received in the NPRM. Finally, in interpreting the definition of ``labor organization'' under the LMRDA, the Department returns to its long held view that the statute's coverage does not encompass intermediate bodies that are wholly composed of public sector organizations. In so doing, the Department has reconsidered a definitional interpretation that it adopted in 2003.

On August 3, 2009, the Office of Labor-Management Standards (``OLMS'') in the Department of Labor (``the Department'') issued a proposed rule implementing Executive Order 13496. This final rule sets forth the Department's review of and response to comments on the proposal and any changes made to the rule in response to those comments.

The Office of Labor-Management Standards proposes to amend its regulations which require labor organizations to file the Form T-1, Trust Annual Report, about certain trusts in which they are interested pursuant to the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA). The Department of Labor (Department) proposes to amend these regulations because it believes that the trust reporting required under the rule is overly broad and is not necessary to prevent the circumvention and evasion of the Title II reporting requirements. Moreover, the Department views separate trust reporting requirements as unnecessary, in part because the Department also proposes to return ``subsidiary organization'' reporting to the Form LM-2 reporting requirements, which it believes is necessary to satisfy the purposes of the LMRDA. Finally, in interpreting the definition of ``labor organization'' under the LMRDA, the Department proposes to return to its long held view that the statute's coverage does not encompass intermediate bodies that are wholly composed of public sector organizations. In so doing, the Department has reconsidered a definitional interpretation that it adopted in 2003, which the Department now considers to have been insufficiently supported during the rulemaking process. The Department seeks comment on each of these proposals.