U.S. Labor Department Enforcement Agency Announces Eight Criminal Convictions for February

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/48744326_us-labor-department-enforcement-agency-announces-e

By admin - Posted on March 18th, 2008

Convictions up 20 percent, indictments 39 percent over fiscal year 2007

WASHINGTON, 03/14/2008 — The U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) today announced its criminal enforcement data for February 2008. During the month, OLMS obtained eight convictions, 11 indictments and court orders of restitution totaling $185,318. The office's totals for fiscal year 2008 (which began on Oct. 1, 2007) now stand at 49 convictions, 57 indictments, and court-ordered restitution of $1,251,798. The bulk of the cases involved the embezzlement of union funds.

These totals represent increases of 20 percent (41 to 49) in convictions and 39 percent (41 to 57) in indictments over fiscal year 2007.

"This financial restitution, as well as the convictions and indictments, highlight the vital role OLMS plays in protecting America's union members," said Deputy Assistant Secretary for Labor-Management Standards Don Todd. "We continue to be proud of our work to eliminate wrongdoing against unions, and our efforts have resulted in the successful prosecution of almost 850 individuals since 2001. We also have obtained almost 900 indictments and obtained court orders of restitution for more than $103 million in that time."

OLMS is the federal law enforcement agency responsible for administering most provisions of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA). The agency's criminal enforcement program includes investigations of embezzlement from labor organizations, extortionate picketing, deprivation of union members' rights by force or violence, and fraud in union officer elections. The agency's civil program collects and publicly discloses unions' annual financial reports, conducts compliance audits of labor unions and seeks civil remedies for violations of officer election procedures. In certain cases, OLMS also conducts joint investigations with other Labor Department agencies including the Employee Benefits Security Administration and Office of Inspector General, as well as law enforcement agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

OLMS's public disclosure Web page at www.unionreports.gov contains union annual financial reports and additional forms required to be filed under the LMRDA. Other information, including synopses of OLMS enforcement actions, is available on OLMS's home page at www.olms.dol.gov.

FULL story at link.

[Earth Bound Misfit]

1. One must also consider the source...

Beyond Justice

Bush Administration’s Labor Department Abuses Labor Union Regulatory Authorities
Scott Lilly
Center for American Progress
December 2007

OLMS Lies About the Contents of its Own Data Base

The cataloging of criminal actions involving labor unions provides exhaustive details on each case. Entries are made under a wide variety of circumstances, including the filing by prosecutors of information alleging wrongdoing, an indictment, a guilty plea, and sentencing. These entries typically include the name of the individual, the venue, the charges, the union involved, the proposed or ordered restitution, and the role of OLMS investigators in bringing the charges and a link to the actual court documents.

For fiscal year 2005 there were a total of 167 entries. Of these, 57 involved the defendant being charged or indicted, 6 involved the filing of information alleging the commitment of a crime, 47 involved a plea agreement or conviction, and 56 involved sentencing. It is therefore difficult to explain how OLMS could get anywhere near the number 97 for total convictions, which they reported and which Union Facts repeated, unless the 47 plea agreements and convictions were combined with the 56 sentencings.

Sentencings, of course, follow convictions, which means OLMS is double-counting—an obvious problem since many of these cases are clearly the same cases. In fiscal year 2005, for example, 22 of the plea agreements and convictions resulted in sentencings that also took place in the same year. But even if they don’t take place in the same year they will eventually occur and there will be a double-reporting of the crime...

A detailed examination of the OLMS criminal enforcement data was conducted by a group lead by Professor John Lund of the University of Wisconsin. They reported their findings in an article published last year entitled, “Lies, **** Lies and Statistics"

Full report: http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/upload/landrum_griffin.pdf

[Earth Bound Misfit]

2. Is that the SAME Don Todd...

"This financial restitution, as well as the convictions and indictments, highlight the vital role OLMS plays in protecting America's union members," said Deputy Assistant Secretary for Labor-Management Standards Don Todd. "We continue to be proud of our work to eliminate wrongdoing against unions, and our efforts have resulted in the successful prosecution of almost 850 individuals since 2001. We also have obtained almost 900 indictments and obtained court orders of restitution for more than $103 million in that time."
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http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/upload/landrum_griffin.pdf
Based on available information, Don Todd had never worked in government prior to arriving at the Labor Department in early 2001. He also appears to have little or no experience as an administrator. Not only does he have no known legal training but some employees who work for him believe he never attended college.

He lacks other skills, too, such as an accounting background or familiarity with administrative issues facing labor organizations that one might look for in a person chosen to run a $40 million plus agency with responsibility for overseeing the governance and financial integrity of the entire American labor movement.

But Todd had decades of experience in campaign communications and propaganda. It was clear from the beginning that he would rely heavily on those skills during his tenure at Labor. Todd’s initial efforts centered on reshaping the OLMS Web site and uploading literally millions of pages of extremely detailed information about the finances of individual labor organizations. He also instituted a data base beginning January 1, 2001, listing all legal actions taken in federal or state courts against any official or employee of a labor union alleged to have violated a law relating to OLMS jurisdiction.

What value this had in helping union members understand the activities of their unions is unclear. What is clear is that the Bush appointees at the Labor Department used the data heavily in statements they made about unions and that the data was used even
more heavily by outside organizations, which spent millions of dollars to publicize union corruption and misconduct...

In the early months of the second Bush administration, Don Todd was chosen to run the Office of Labor-Management Standards. Todd was neither an attorney nor an individual with extensive experience in labor issues. Many elements of his background remain unclear and he is one of only a few deputy assistant secretaries in the department who never posted a biography on the department website despite his more than six-year tenure in that position.

There are some things about Todd’s background, however, that are clear. Since at least the late 1970s he has been involved in the strident attack side of Republican campaign politics.

Todd’s most notable public moment came in 1988 when Lee Atwater asked him to head opposition research for the Republican National Committee. There he unearthed the fact that an inmate in the Massachusetts prison system had committed a murder while on a furlough he had been granted by prison authorities in return for information he provided against other inmates. At Todd’s urging, Atwater convinced the Bush campaign to make the ad a center piece of the George H.W. Bush campaign for president against Michael Dukakis.The ad was named after the inmate whose story Todd had discovered, Willie Horton, and was widely credited for Bush’s 1988 victory. In return, Todd was named the “RNC MAN OF THE YEAR.”

It did not take the new team long to move forward in adopting the policies that the assistant secretary in charge of the programs in the first Bush administration, Bob Guttman, had threatened to resign over. Their strategy appears to have had two principal objectives:

1)Greatly increase the time, effort, and expense to labor unions, their officers, and employees of complying with department reporting requirements.

2)Use information gleaned from Labor Department investigations of union officials and employees along with data from expanded union reporting requirements to launch a public relations effort to discredit unions and weaken their ability to organize and act on behalf of their members.

[Earth Bound Misfit]

3. More.....

What is Wrong with the Bush Administration Approach to
Labor Law Enforcement

One thing that should be said about Don Todd’s tenure at the Labor Department is that it would be difficult to concoct a less effective means of routing out corruption and wrongdoing in the labor movement. Any effective law enforcement effort is built on establishing a positive rapport with the community whose laws are to be enforced.

The vast majority of unions will continue to seek out and report wrongdoers simply because it is in their interest to do so. The less money that is stolen from them the more money they have to advocate on behalf of their members. But no one could fault them for failing to see Don Todd and his operation at the Labor Department as allies in that effort. As a result, the level of cooperation will be less than optimal.

But there is a far more fundamental problem with what this paper describes taking place at the Labor Department. “To the victor go the spoils,” remarked Sen. William L Marcy of New York when defending Andrew Jackson’s replacement of government employees
hired by his predecessor, John Quincy Adams. Do we want a political system in which the “spoils” extend beyond simple patronage, to a system which grants winners the ability to use the law of the land to weaken, disable, and destroy political opponents?

Is it healthy for Americans of either party if the new administration that will come to office in a little more than a year observes as it is taking the reins of power that these types of abuses by its predecessor went unchallenged and unchecked?

The American people are justly proud of their Constitution and our nation’s long history of commitment to the rule of law. But they may be overly confident that the rule of law can be protected by the Constitution alone. Any society that allows partisan allegiance to trump commitment to the fundamental values of democracy—beginning with
the rule of law—is on a relatively quick path to losing those values. The current mess at the Labor Department is yet one more indicator that this country is on that path.

http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/upload/landrum_griffin.pdf