If Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Solicitor M. Patricia Smith are pushing the limits of radical advocacy, Leon Rodriguez might just be the person to push them further. Rodriguez, for nearly a year the chief of staff at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, is President Obama's presumptive nominee for administrator of DOL's Wage and Hour Division. The president announced on December 2 his intent to name him to the long-vacant post. But like the previous (unsuccessful) nominee, Lorelei Boylan, Rodriguez, an experienced prosecutor, has an expressed belief that what counts is equality of result, not equality under the law - even if employers have to pay the toll. If Obama is genuine about his recently stated desire to promote business development, he should find another candidate.
Today we filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the Labor Department, its Wage and Hour Division, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). We ask for all third-party communications related to this week's signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the two agencies and eleven state governments.
A union normally is about the last place anyone would look to find someone pressuring the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to more aggressively scrutinize union financial reporting. Yet a member of a public employee local in Maryland is doing just that. And he's gone to court, too. Meet Chris Mosquera, a member of Local 1994 of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), which represents municipal and county government workers in suburban Montgomery County, Md. This May, Mosquera 
Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis has taken her gloves off in the ongoing war within the states. And her supporters are aching for more. In a speech before a partisan audience at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. last Saturday, Solis proclaimed solidarity with Wisconsin public-sector unions and their supporters who have all but shut down the state legislature in protest of Republican Gov. Scott Walker's proposals to curb public spending.
When Department of Labor Solicitor 
Readers of Union Corruption Update may have noticed something recently: a shortage of references to criminal investigations by the Labor Department's Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS). That's not a figment of the imagination. The main source of these references - 
Like any cabinet-level agency, the U.S. Department of Labor under the Obama administration has its share of political cronies. And the department has given more than a few indications that it intends to remake DOL into a vehicle for union advocacy. The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTW) for the past year has sought the full story. It's one of the less publicized aspects of the apparent lack of accountability in the current administration. This past December, attorneys for the Springfield, Va.-based foundation 
"We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama - $60.7 million to be exact - and we're proud of it," Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President 
The Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the prime venues for President Obama's attempt to unite governance and community activism. But he's having an unexpectedly tough time conveying his enthusiasm to the Senate. Nearly four months ago, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing on the confirmation of M. Patricia "Trisha" Smith to become the DOL's next solicitor, which is the third highest post in the department behind secretary and deputy secretary. Yet the appointment remains up in the air. That's because Republicans on the committee are concerned Smith may replicate a program she recently initiated as current labor commissioner for the State of New York. 
It's no secret that many union-sponsored pension plans lack the assets needed to cover liabilities. And a major reason for this lies with the gullibility, and on due occasion dishonesty, of their fiduciaries. Major case in point: the theft of tens of millions of dollars from six union pension plans entrusted to Chicago-based equity fund manager 
