USDOL Announces New Short-Form Simplified LM-30 Form for Union Officers

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis has announced that as of November 25, 2011, the LM-30 Form which Union Officers must file will be simplified from nine (9) pages to two (2) pages.

It will be much easier to fill out, and it will call for far less detailed information.

The basic changes, as announced by the USDOL in its Bulletin about LM-30’s, are as follows:

This final rule shortens the form from nine to two pages, and effectuates changes in the following five substantive areas of the Form LM-30 reporting requirements:

Union shop stewards, as a general rule, are not required to file the form;

Union leave and no docking payments (i.e., payments to union officials, who are also employees of the employer, for work done for the union on employer time) are not required to be reported;

Bona fide financial transactions with credit institutions, including loans, are not reportable;

Payments from employers competitive to the represented employer are reportable only if they represent an actual or likely conflict, and payments from unions and their trusts are not required to be reported; and

International, national, and intermediate union officers have a continuing obligation to report potential conflicts regarding locals and other subordinate unions (referred to as “top-down reporting”).  While the 2007 rule excluded employees from the top-down reporting requirement, this final rule requires top-down reporting by higher-level employees who exercise “significant authority or influence” over a subordinate union.