The proposed regulations from the Bush administration stipulating onerous new reporting for unions are clearly designed to be so burdensome that they will weaken unions as a force for workers’ rights and economic fairness.

If the Bush administration is genuinely interested in institutional accountability and financial transparency then why are they not proposing these same reporting requirements for corporations, which operate under far fewer reporting requirements than unions already have? Why is the White House imposing massive new regulations on unions, while blocking new regulations on employers that would protect workers from injury on the job, and while cutting back on regulations that protect water quality, food safety and the environment.

These regulations are clearly punitive and anti-union – another step taken at the behest of the Administration’s wealthy corporate backers.

These requirements create an enormous amount of red tape that will cost union members an estimated billion dollars a year – a crushing cost burden for which there is no widespread support among union members at all. These regulations apply to small unions that often rely on part-time and voluntary staffing as well as large unions.

The first Bush administration tried in the early 1990s to institute similar changes; they were considered so outrageous that Bush’s own assistant secretary of labor, Robert Guttman, denounced them when he resigned. President Clinton rescinded the onerous new regulations, and now the second Bush administration is trying to reinstate them.

Contact: Suzanne Ffolkes 202-637-5018