Employers that hire outside consultants to help persuade workers to stay union free are required to file reports of this expenditure to the Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) each year stating so. This is nothing new. Employers file an LM-10 within 90 days of the end of the employer’s fiscal year. The outside consultants also have to file two forms. One must be filed within 90 days from the end of the consultant’s fiscal year and another form is filed within 30 days of being hired by the employer. This form is the LM-20.

These filings are pursuant to the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 – nothing new so far.

However recently the OLMS proposed requiring employers to report money paid to their own staff (supervisors, managers, and HR personnel) if they engage in what is called “reportable” activity. This would be persuader activity where the employer’s staff work on union avoidance activities.

The proposed rule states in part:

“OLMS intends to explore the scope of split-income reporting on the Form LM-10 Employer Report, pursuant to section 203 of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA). Under split-income reporting, the employer would be required to report, for example, its supervisors' income on a split basis, that is, the pro rata share of the supervisor’s wages that were spent undertaking the reportable activity. [Emphasis added.]”

To implement this, a new LM-10 form would include a split income entry that would state what the employer paid its own employees to engage in persuader activity. The new rule does not appear to require the employees to file an LM-20 or LM-21 report like the outside consultants do. Still, this would create a heavy burden on employers to track employee time worked doing persuader activity if this reportable activity was a small part of the employee’s overall job.

This new rule was reported from the OLMS’s Spring 2024 regulatory agenda and so far, nothing more has come of it. Although not even a proposed rule as of yet, if this rule was to be implemented, failure to follow its requirements could subject the employer to criminal charges.

This is another attempt by a union friendly Washington administration to gag an employer’s right to speak freely to its employees regarding unionization and its implications – Information the other side (organized labor) really does not want workers to hear.

Employers can train their supervisors and HR personnel on their rights under the National Labor Relations Act and how to remain union free in ASE’s classes offered on this important subject. We recommend this training before this new rule comes to pass and the OLMS makes it a reportable activity.

Source: Labor Union News. DOL Wants Employers to Report Money Spent on Internal Supervisors, Others to Persuade Employees Against Unions. (7/17/24)