The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) has announced that it plans to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking regarding revisions to the Labor Organization Officer and Employee Report (LM-30) financial disclosure form. Form LM-30, which had been revised in 2007, requires union officers and employees (except employees performing exclusively clerical or custodial services) to report certain financial transactions and financial interests in order to make public any actual or potential conflict between their personal financial interests and their obligations to the labor organization and its members. The proposed rulemaking will focus on the changes made by the 2007 regulatory revisions which, the agency claims, dramatically altered the old Form LM-30 and instructions that had not substantially changed in over 40 years.

The new LM-30 raised the ire of organized labor, as it imposed new requirements and expanded the form from two to nine pages. The AFL-CIO filed a lawsuit – AFL-CIO v. Chao – in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to enjoin the use of the new form, alleging that the DOL lacked the authority to impose the new rule, and that the form’s expanded requirements are arbitrary and capricious. This case is still pending. The revised rule will address the scope and extent of the reporting obligations, and the questions raised by the recent litigation. Until these questions are resolved, the OLMS will accept either the old Form LM-30 or the new one for compliance purposes.