Labor Department Official Advises Unions to Circumvent Disclosure Rules

In April we exposed Obama’s overseer of union financial disclosure and his personal conflicts-of-interest. Now we have well-sourced evidence that Director John Lund is telling union officials to bypass Department of Labor investigators and work with him personally. Imagine if U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Mary Schapiro invited delinquent reporting corporate presidents and treasurers to deal with her directly and ignore SEC personnel. Lund is the Office of Labor-Management Standards Director who oversees investigations and audits of union financial records and union officials’ conflicts-of-interest reporting, and he is using his new position to benefit his old clients form Big Labor. From the previous BigGovernment post:

John Lund’s Conflicts-of-Interest

The Obama Ethics Executive Order requires appointees to pledge that they will refrain from involvement in matters involving their former employer or clients. The AFL-CIO and other unions are former clients of John Lund , and these unions remain clients of his former and current employer, the University of Wisconsin School for Workers (Lund is currently on unpaid leave while at DOL). The Wisconsin School for Workers’ primary mission is to train union officials; the very officials that Lund now purportedly investigates for corruption.

Lund currently attends conferences and union training meetings like he did while he was the School for Workers director — a U.S. Government employee on the taxpayers’ dime. While at the conferences and meetings, he hands out business cards like candy to those he has federally-granted power over. He tells these Big Labor bosses “If you have a problem come to me, and ignore the field investigators.” Why? Because by going to Lund, union bosses can work out deals to avoid jail time or criminal charges. He can personally advise them how to “clean up” their reports to avoid consequences. On the other hand, if pesky Department of Labor investigators get involved, then government investigative records will be made, facts will be verified, and falsehoods will be documented.

Forced-dues-paying union members and voluntary members are getting the shaft by the Obama DOL, and Lund bears much of the responsibility. He is helping union bosses by eliminating and reducing conflict-of-interest disclosure, and by reducing and eliminating union financial disclosures. These disclosure tools were put in place in 1959 to help union members regain control of their unions.

If you look at the Wisconsin School for Workers, you can see its classes indicate that a more appropriate name for John Lund’s other employer would be the Wisconsin School for Union bosses. Lund has shamelessly and flagrantly misused his government position to provide a personal service to his former union clients and to the current clients of the Wisconsin School for Workers. Lund’s kind of personal service is rarely provided by your federal government to mere mortals and everyday taxpayers. But in the case of union officers who use forced dues to fund the Democrat party, Sec. Hilda Solis’ congressional campaigns, and her former office as the Treasurer of the American Rights at Work, the Department of Labor has been rolling out the red carpet.

Lund’s actions need to be investigated and any scheduled trips that Director Lund has planned to visit union conferences or meetings should be cancelled until completion of a full investigation into his conduct followed with appropriate sanctions against Director Lund. In fact, he should refrain from contacting or taking calls from union bosses while he remains at DOL.

The Secretary of Labor or the Office of Government Ethics should prohibit Lund from attending events like this one described in our previous post on Lund:

Without regard to appearances, OLMS Director Lund continues to take time to provide training for his Big Labor friends. On 2010 January 25, Lund flew, at government expense, to Seattle, WA, to provide the AFL-CIO’s Washington Labor Council members with a personal overview of his recent reporting rescissions. The union headlined John Lund’s 3-hour presentation. At the Jan. 25 workshop, Lund will discuss the new regulations, the common reporting mistakes unions make and how to correct them, and answer your specific questions to ensure your LM reports are accurate.[i] OLMS maintains a District Office in Seattle, and its staff would have routinely provided this compliance assistance, rather than OLMS Director John Lund going out of his way to create this personal conflict-of-interest.

Congress needs to investigate this out-and-out abuse of power by Lund and the actions others at DOL. It is time to clean up this Administration, and if we can only start with a Big Labor puppet like John Lund, then I say we at least start now.