WSJ: Labor Secretary Solis Pushes Agenda to Bolster Labor

[Omaha Steve]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126020616287780209.html

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said her agency will seek to enact an array of 90 rules and regulations next year aimed at giving more power to workers and unions.

Signaling priorities, Ms. Solis said: "We are committed to ensuring that workers are paid a fair wage, have a voice in the workplace, are provided a safe workplace and have a secure retirement."

Ms. Solis's agenda will promote rules requiring employers to increase disclosure to workers on how their pay is computed, strengthening affirmative action requirements for federal contractors, and compelling greater disclosure from employers about their dealings with consultants who advise the companies on how to deal with workplace unions or unionization attempts.

Currently employers and consultants are not required to report "advice" they get from consultants, but the Labor Department said in a statement that this filing exception should be narrowed so employees will have a more transparent view into what employers are doing in response to union matters..

The agency "is going to explore that exception and try to more accurately define what advice means," Deputy Labor Secretary Seth Harris said in an interview. More broadly, "Our goal is that through greater openness and transparency, we increase compliance without having to send an investigator into the workplace."

Unions have been pushing for greater financial disclosure of management-side consultants for more than a decade. A rule change was studied during the Clinton administration but was dropped during the Bush administration, according to Michael Lotito, a partner with Jackson Lewis LLP in San Francisco. Mr. Lotito said he believed new disclosure rules would lead some companies to avoid hiring outside consultants.

FULL article at link.

[Zynx]

1. If for no other reason, this is why you elect Democrats.