As you’re seeing demonstrated in the machinations concerning GM and Chrysler, not to mention the attempt to pass the card check legislation, unions are a favored constituency within the Obama administration. And it gets even better:

The Obama administration, which has boasted about its efforts to make government more transparent, is rolling back rules requiring labor unions and their leaders to report information about their finances and compensation.

The Labor Department noted in a recent disclosure that “it would not be a good use of resources” to bring enforcement actions against union officials who do not comply with conflict of interest reporting rules passed in 2007. Instead, union officials will now be allowed to file older, less detailed conflict reports.

The regulation, known as the LM-30 rule, was at the heart of a lawsuit that the AFL-CIO filed against the department last year. One of the union attorneys in the case, Deborah Greenfield, is now a high-ranking deputy at Labor, who also worked on the Obama transition team on labor issues.

Apparently, however, it is a good use of resources to spend money on just about everything else under the sun. But of course, if they used resources to bring enforcement actions against union officials who don’t comply with conflict of interest reporting rules, they’d have to start with Deborah Greenfield, wouldn’t they?

Funny how “resource use” suddenly becomes a problem when a probable rule violation becomes fairly evident.

Critics worry that the rollback of union reporting requirements will keep hidden potentially corrupt financial arrangements aimed at rooting out corruption, but unions say the Bush administration reporting rules were unfair and burdensome.

Darn right they were because, you know, they were catching corrupt union officials. Can’t have that. So “unfair and burdensome” – something that tax payers are never able to plead about the gigantic and undecipherable tax code – now takes priority over transparent and accountable.

Hope and change.

[Crossposted at QandO. Latest Examiner article here.]

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