Unions covered by the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), the Civil Service Retirement Act (CSRA), or the Foreign Service Act (FSA), with total annual receipts of $250,000 or more, are currently required to submit annual financial statements to the US Department of Labor. These statements provide basic information.

The LM-2 Form: This form will tell you when the next union election is, how many members the union has, the salaries of officers and staff, and other useful information, including:

• Whether the union has any subsidiary organizations
• Whether the union has a political action committee (PAC)
• Whether the union discovered any loss or shortage of funds
• Number of members
• Rates of dues and fees
• 7 asset categories such as cash and investments
• 4 liability categories such as accounts payable and mortgages payable
• 16 receipts categories such as dues and interest
• 18 disbursement categories such as payments to officers and repayment of loans obtained
• A schedule of payments to officers
• A schedule of payments to employees
• A schedule of office and administrative expenses
• A schedule of loans payable.

LM-2 forms (as well as LM-3 and T-1 forms for smaller unions) are public documents that are now online on the website of the US Department of Labor. Note: the forms are searchable. This means you can look for all officers earning over $100,000, for example, or for information about a particular officer or employee of the union. You can also get information on union Trusts and Political Action Committees (PACs).

To search forms available in DOL’s Online Public Disclosure Room or to learn more on how to use the site, click here.

To search LM-2s specifically:

1. In the “Union Reports and Collective Bargaining Agreements: Online Public Disclosure Room,” scroll down about a third of the window to the first point “Union (Form LM-2, LM-3, or LM-4) Search” under “Access Union Reports and Constitutions and Bylaws.” Click on the highlighted link.

2. Or, go directly here. Most individuals will not know the file number so just give whatever information you do know. Identify whether you want information about a union, a trust, or both.
   
   For purposes of this example, select “union,” then choose the union’s Abbreviation (CWA for example), or enter the union’s Affiliation (for example “Communications Workers AFL-CIO”), Organization Name (“Communications Workers of America), Designation Name (whether it is a local, council, conference, etc.), Designation Number (the local or council number, for example, local “1101”), Unit Name (name of that particular unit), City (“New York”) and State (“New York”). You do not need to fill in all the fields to search.
   
   Most of the form blanks have drop down menus to help you find the official name.

3. When you have put in the information, hit “submit.” The search engine will open a new page with the unions and reports that match your search.

4. Select the file you want to see and the type of report you are looking for. If you want to see salary information for officers and employees, select “Reports Specific to LM-2, LM-3, and T-1s; Officer/Employee Report.”

5. Note: You may have to look at various reports to find the information you want. Also, be sure to check all the pages of a form, not just the page that comes up on your screen. (Look for the “Records Next” button on the upper right.) You can also download the information.
   

Since 1975, the National Institute for Labor Relations Research has collected more than 9,000 reports of union violence. These incidents are recorded and electronically maintained in the Institute’s Violent Event Data File.

The Violent Event Data File is a record of violent events that involved labor union members and/or labor union officials. The file is organized into a list of individual records, with each record summarizing a separate violent event. The information about each of these events is found in articles in magazines, newspapers, television news program transcripts and trade association journals.

Violent events that occurred anywhere in the United States since 1975 are put into the file and recorded electronically, so that violent events can be listed by criteria such as the union involved, where and when the violence occurred, and whether the violence involved property damage and/or personal injury. In addition, the Data File can be programmed to print a listing of all violent incidents that occurred in Arizona and involved the Teamsters union. In addition, the original source of each event can easily be found because the number assigned to each record in the data file is also written on the original article. These original sources can then be relocated for confirmation and/or more detailed analysis.

For instance, while the Institute has recorded 8,799 incidents of union violence since 1975, only 1,963 arrests and 258 convictions have been found. It is difficult to believe that local news media who covered the violence resulting from a strike would not follow up on any subsequent legal action. Thus, it appears that of the violent incidents recorded in the Institute’s Data File, barely three percent of those incidents have led to an arrest and conviction.

Many of the news clips here point to one of the reasons: local law enforcement authorities frequently overwhelmed by the number of participants in union violence, who sometimes lash out by blaming the company targeted by union militants for trying to continue its legal operation in the face of illegal violence.

In addition to the powerlessness of local law enforcement, federal authorities are also hamstrung by the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous Enmons decision. In the 1973 ruling, the High Court held that union officials may destroy property, assault employees, and even murder them, while escaping prosecution under federal extortion laws, so long as such violence is undertaken to secure what the Supreme Court called “legitimate” objectives, such as wage increases. Meanwhile, an increasing number of states have enacted extortion laws exempting union officials from prosecution for the so-called “legitimate” objectives cited in Enmons.

From some of the strikes chronicled here, it is also clear that the actual extent of the violence perpetrated by union militants far exceeds the small number of incidents reported in the Institute’s Data File. In some of the strikes of which the Institute recorded, police and company reports indicate that the actual number of assaults, threats and property damage is tens of times greater than the news reports collected by the Institute.

For more information about the Institute’s Violent Event Data File, e-mail research@nilrr.org.