Chris Mosquera, a Maryland county government employee filed a federal lawsuit in May with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys to stop the Obama Administration from allowing union bosses to conceal lavish and corrupt union expenditures from workers.

In today's Washington Examiner, Mosquera discussed why he filed the lawsuit against Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis:

As a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, I'm more knowledgeable than most about the ins and outs of union finance.

In fact, I've learned some interesting things about my own local's spending habits over the years. Like the $2 million office condo they bought in Gaithersburg, or the fact that the president of my local makes over $200,000 a year, plus other undocumented benefits.

...

Disclosure is a simple but effective tool for fighting corruption and encouraging accountability. If union officials know their spending habits are part of the public record, they'll be less interested in expensive getaways and more interested in effectively managing their members' hard-earned dues.

Click here to read the entire op-ed.

For more of the Foundation's coverage of the union-boss disclosures here, click here.

National Right to Work President Mark Mix appeared on "Your World with Neil Cavuto" to discuss Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis's efforts to undermine union transparency. Check out the video below:

Union Member Seeks to Block Obama Labor Department’s Efforts to Roll Back Union Disclosure Rules

Department guts disclosure rule that has exposed numerous corrupt union boss schemes, let rank-and-file members know how dues are spent

Washington, DC (May 23, 2011) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a Maryland county government employee is asking a federal court to stop the Obama Administration from allowing union bosses to conceal lavish and corrupt union expenditures from workers.

Chris Mosquera, a member of a Municipal County Government Employee Local of the United Food and Commercial Worker (UFCW) union, filed the lawsuit against Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for rescinding a union boss disclosure rule which would make it less difficult for workers to hold union officials accountable.

Unions covered by the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) with total annual receipts of $250,000 or more are currently required to submit annual financial statements to the U.S. Department of Labor. LM-2 forms are the public disclosure documents for these larger unions and are available online on the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) website.

These forms have helped workers and citizen activists expose many unscrupulous union boss schemes, including lavish benefits to high-ranking union officials and loyalists, superfluous spending on union boss transportation (including private jets), and shady political spending (such as the Service Employees International Union bosses’ links to the disgraced political organization ACORN).

Read the entire release here.

The National Right to Work Foundation has submitted formal comments opposing proposed rule changes that would dramatically undermine union transparency at the Obama Department of Labor (DoL). The full comments can be found here, but the long and short of it is that the Obama DoL is proposing two major changes to union disclosure under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) of 1959:

1) The first change would exempt "intermediate bodies" from LMRDA union disclosure requirements. "Intermediate bodies" are basically state and local subsidiaries of national unions, which means that Big Labor bosses could funnel forced-dues dollars to regional affiliates to avoid DoL transparency requirements if the proposed rule changes go through. Allowing union operatives to hide questionable expenditures through local and state subsidiaries clearly hampers the ability of workers to learn how their mandatory union dues are being spent.

2) The second change, which the Foundation also opposes, would no longer require Big Labor to file T-1 disclosure forms. These forms disclose financial information about Big Labor trusts - strike funds, political front groups, and other organizations unions control through board appointments, financial ccontributions, or contributions through a collective bargaining agreement. This means that Big Labor-funded organizations like American Rights at Work, a political front group that Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis served on before her appointment, would no longer be subject to basic disclosure guidelines.

Big Labor's influence at the Obama DoL has already been extensively documented, so we can't say we're surprised by this development. Although transparency is a poor substitute for freeing employees from the burden of compulsory unionism, if workers continue to be forced to pay union dues, Big Labor should at the very least have to explain where the money is going. That's why the Foundation opposes these rule changes, as well as any other attempt to undermine union transparency at the Obama DoL. 

President Barack Obama's efforts to transition the Department of Labor into a giant, taxpayer-funded extension of Big Labor's organizing and political fund-raising machine just hit another milestone. President Barack Obama's January 30, 2009 executive order, aimed to help union bosses seize more forced dues revenue to fund Big Labor’s political agenda, was just printed in the Federal Register -- making it official. 

In a nutshell, the EO tears down posted notices to employees of federal contractors which explain they can actually refrain from paying forced union dues spent for union electioneering and the like.

Obama's directive intends to ensure millions of workers do not learn of their rights and revokes former-President Bush's February 2001 executive order which required federal contractors to post notices in the workplace simply informing employees of their right to refrain from formal, full-dues-paying union membership and pay only the documented cost of collective bargaining.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys won these rights in their precedent-setting U.S. Supreme Court victory in Communication Workers v. Beck (1988).  

Regular Freedom@Work readers may remember Obama's edict was one of the first in a long line of political paybacks to Big Labor for their use of over a billion forced-dues dollars in 2008 to elected him and his pro-compulsory unionism allies in Congress.  View some other Obama paybacks to Big Labor, including his picks on who controls the Department of Labor and the NLRB, rolling back union disclosure guidelines and reducing union boss accountability, and using taxpayer dollars to fund their forced dues operations and bail out union boss pension funds.

Union Watchdog Files Second Disclosure Request to Investigate Obama Labor Department Stonewalling

Media report indicates Department of Labor officials are “in a tizzy and freaking out” over federal lawsuit

Washington, DC (December 2, 2009) – The National Right to Work Foundation has filed new disclosure demands on the heels of its lawsuit to compel the Department of Labor (DOL) to release information related to high-ranking officials’ connections to powerful union lobbying interests.

A media report indicates DOL officials have deliberately ignored disclosure laws, and Right to Work attorneys are seeking internal DOL records backing up the report.

National Right to Work originally lodged a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request last April citing concerns about Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, who previously held a key leadership position at the Big Labor-front group “American Rights at Work,” and Deborah Greenfield, who was a lawyer for the AFL-CIO involved in a lawsuit challenging DOL union disclosure regulations that she now oversees as an administration appointee.

For the last seven months, the Obama Administration has stonewalled the Foundation’s FOIA request seeking disclosure of the high-ranking DOL officials’ contacts with union operatives. Late last month, Right to Work attorneys filed suit in federal court to force the Obama Administration to fulfill its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act.

Subsequent media coverage has revealed DOL officials apparently decided to ignore the Foundation’s FOIA request, but facing the lawsuit and negative publicity is now reconsidering. Additionally, one media report cited a high-placed source stating that panicked DOL officials “are in a tizzy and freaking out” because of the Foundation’s lawsuit.

(Read the full press release)

After President Barack Obama made numerous promises for a more transparent government, the Department of Labor (DOL) has, for nearly six months, hidden Big Labor insiders Hilda Solis and Deborah Greenfield activities from National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Witnessing the Administration's corrupt Big Labor political paybacks, the Foundation swiftly sprang into action requesting all documents showing exchanges between Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and union bosses and all documentation regarding policy enforcement concerning Big Labor, the pro-compulsory unionism group American Rights at Work, and ACORN.  The Foundation also seeks all documents showing communications between AFL-CIO union lawyer Deborah Greenfield and her former bosses.

Greenfield, a member of Obama's presidential transition team, is a high-ranking official inside Obama’s Labor Department. One item sending red flags is the fact that Greenfield is an AFL-CIO lawyer in a lawsuit challenging DOL union disclosure rules -- the very disclosures that the Obama Administration intends to end.  Greenfield and her fellow union partisans have fought for and succeeded in rolling back union disclosure rules that provide details to rank-and-file workers about the use and misuse of their forced union dues.

Freedom@Work readers may remember that the Foundation filed its disclosure demand (pdf) in April.  Foundation attorneys are now reiterating that demand and gearing up to litigate if necessary.  (To view a pdf copy of the appeal, click here.)

Upon entering office, President Barack Obama claimed his Administration would be transparent -- but his Administration's behavior has failed to keep the President’s word.  The Obama Administration's delay in this particular raises questions that DOL may be attempting to cover up some embarrassing ethics violations.

You can watch the Foundation's video regarding the original FOIA request here on our Youtube.com channel.

Regular Freedom@Work readers will remember our extensive coverage of Barack Obama's numerous executive orders (during the first month of his Presidency) paying back union bosses for their efforts getting him into the White House.

Yesterday, a provision in Obama's January 30 executive order took effect -- revoking former-President Bush's February 2001 executive order which required federal contractors to post notices in the workplace simply informing employees of their right to refrain from formal, dues paying union membership and withhold forced dues for everything but the documented cost of collective bargaining. 

The Obama directive is intended to ensure millions of workers do not learn of their right, won in the National Right to Work Foundation's precedent-setting U.S. Supreme Court victory Communication Workers v. Beck, to withhold forced union dues earmarked for union politics, lobbying, and other non-bargaining activities.

This is just the first of many steps by Barack Obama and his Big Labor cronies (for example, his Labor Secretary Hilda Solis) are already taking to help union bosses to seize more forced dues revenue to fund Big Labor’s political agenda.

As the vote on Solis's nomination approaches, Foundation Legal Information Director Patrick Semmens sits down with Stan Greer of the National Right to Work Committee to discuss the scandals surrounding her appointment and the direction of an Obama-helmed Department of Labor.

Here on Freedom@Work, we've kept a close watch on Hilda Solis, the California Congresswoman nominated by President Obama to serve as Secretary of Labor. 

We've told you about Solis' secret ballot hypocrisy, her admission that she is not "qualified" to discuss Right to Work, her refusal to answer basic questions on key labor issues, and her position as treasurer (which she failed to disclose to Congress) with a Big Labor lobbying group.

Now USA Today reports that Hilda Solis is the fourth major Obama nominee to be faced with a tax scandal:

The husband of President Obama's Labor secretary nominee paid about $6,400 Wednesday to settle tax liens that had been outstanding for as long as 16 years against his business, the Obama administration told USA TODAY this afternoon...

Personal tax problems have tripped up three of President Obama's nominees for top administration jobs. Two nominees withdrew on Tuesday over tax issues, including Tom Daschle, Obama's choice head the Health and Human Services Department. The other withdrawal was chief performance officer nominee Nancy Killefer, who had a $947 tax lien filed against her in Washington four years ago for not paying unemployment compensation taxes for a household employee. She paid the debt less than six months later, District of Columbia records show.

But there's more.  According to the report, some of the tax liens resulted from "unpaid county health and safety permit fees."  And Solis has the gall to seek a position that enforces health and safety laws against workplaces across America? 

Maybe Solis' cozy relationship with Big Labor's high command over the years has given her the false impression shared by so many union bosses that they are above the law.  With all those special privileges such as immunity from federal prosecution for union violence and exemption from anti-monopoly laws, union bosses actually are above the law in many respects.  And with Solis running the Department of Labor, union chiefs would expect Solis -- who voted with the AFL-CIO 100% of the time -- to cut funding to the agency which investigates union boss corruption.

Solis' indiscretions are even more disturbing in light of President Obama's recent executive orders which would give the Secretary of Labor unprecedented authority to fire federal contractors who don't grease the rails for coervice card check organizing. 

This hypocrite aspiring to be Labor Secretary is poised to receive virtually unchecked power over which contractors get to do work funded by the nearly trillion dollar "stimulus" plan.  Perhaps Hilda Solis should withdraw herself from consideration and get her own house in order.