US Department of Labor announces proposed rulemaking to rescind Final Rule on Form T-1 Trust Annual Report filing

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to rescind the final rule on “Labor Organization Annual Financial Reports for Trusts in which a Labor Organization is Interested, Form T-1.”

On March 29, 2021, the department announced that it would propose to rescind this rule and advised that its Office of Labor-Management Standards would not enforce the final rule until one year after the date a labor organization’s first Form T-1 was due. The department proposes that the Form T-1 would not provide any additional information necessary for OLMS to track labor organization fraud.

The department had published a final rule establishing the Form T-1 on March 6, 2020. It required labor unions with $250,000 or greater in total annual receipts and which file the Form LM-2 annual union financial disclosure report to file this separate report covering the finances of certain trusts in which they are interested, such as apprenticeship and training plans, labor-management cooperation committees, strike funds and building corporations.

“As stated in the proposed rule, the implementation and enforcement of Form T-1 may actually deprive the Department of resources needed to enforce the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act,” said the Office of Labor-Management Standards Director Jeffrey Freund. “Even without the Form T-1, existing filing through agencies such as the department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration and the IRS provide the public with needed disclosures. If the Form T-1 is rescinded, union members will continue to receive detailed information about their union’s finances, including the identity and contact information of the union’s trusts, through the annual Form LM-2 report available in the OLMS Public Disclosure Room.”

The department encourages interested parties to submit comments on the proposed rule. Read the NPRM, along with the procedures for submitting comments. The Federal Register will publish the NPRM on May 27, and be available for public comment for 60 days. Read Frequently Asked Questions on the proposed rule.

OLMS administers and enforces provisions of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959. The act promotes union democracy and financial integrity in private sector labor unions, and transparency for labor unions and their officials, employers and their labor relations consultants, and others. Report fraud and other criminal activity such as embezzlement, filing false reports, maintaining false records, destroying or concealing records by email to OLMS-Public@dol.gov to the OLMS National Office at 202-693-0143, or to your local OLMS field office.