Home > Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act

Enacted in 1959 after revelations concerning corruption and undemocratic practices in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, International Longshoremen's Association , United Mine Workers and other unions received wide public attention, the Act requires unions to hold secret elections for local union office on a regular basis and provides for review by the United States Department of Labor of union members' claims of improper election activity.

Other provisions of the law:

• Bar members of the Communist Party and convicted felons from holding union office.
• Require unions to submit annual financial reports to the DOL.
• Declare that every union officer must act as a fiduciary in handling the assets and conducting the affairs of the union.
• Limit the power of unions to put subordinate bodies in trusteeship, a temporary suspension of democratic processes within a union.

The LMRDA covers both workers and unions covered by the National Labor Relations Act ("Wagner Act") and workers and unions in the railroad and airline industries, who are covered by the Railway Labor Act . The LMRDA does not, as a general rule, cover public sector employees, who are not covered by either the NLRA or the RLA. The LMRDA likewise does not displace state laws governing unions' relations with their members except to the extent that those state laws would conflict with federal law.

1 Related Articles

• Norris-LaGuardia Act
• Taft-Hartley Act
• List of United States federal legislation

1.1 External link

• Amended text of LMRDA from the Department of Labor