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The Further Decline of the U.S. Labor Department |
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Thursday, 05 June 2008 |
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The Bush Administration plans to request the spending of 100 times more on monitoring Unions than it plans to spend on verifying that employers adhere to Labor Law. We can expect another long year of employers and corporations being supported by this GOP administration while workers and Union represented employees have to fight for the protections Labor Laws provide them. We can no longer tolerate this assault on Laws designed to give protection and justice in the workplace for America Workers’.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) just sent out one of its periodic snapshots regarding budgets requests for the U.S. department of labor.
President Bush’s Fiscal Year 2009 budget request for the U.S. Department of Labor is dramatically out of balance. President Bush requested $58 million for Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS), which oversees 23,000 unions and union locals with 13 million members.
He requested only $193 million for the Wage and Hour Division, which oversees 7.4 million employers and protects 150 million employees by enforcing a host of labor standards, including child labor laws, overtime rules and the Family and Medical Leave Act, among others. In terms of dollars per regulated entity, the OLMS budget is $2,500 per union and union local. The Wage and Hour Division budget is only $26.08 per employer. President Bush wants to spend almost 100 times more per union to make sure they comply with the law than to make sure employers comply with the law.
Over the whole Bush presidency, the contrast in funding is even more striking. Staff at OLMS has been increased 9 percent, from 290 positions to 317, while the Wage and Hour Division staff has been cut 21 percent, from 1,528 positions to 1,208, continuing a 30-year downsizing trend.
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