Running a presidential campaign requires a certain amount of boiling down of ideas into easy sound bites and slogans. The opposition party candidate, in particular, must successfully define himself as the candidate of “change,” possessed of an ability to alter the nation’s course away from the “failed policies of the past.” The Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is no exception. He knows he’s got to win over skeptics with simple messages, but at the same time offer specific proposals for true believers. And as much as any bloc in his party can be, labor leaders and activists are true believers.
Like any cabinet-level agency, the U.S. Department of Labor under the Obama administration has its share of political cronies. And the department has given more than a few indications that it intends to remake DOL into a vehicle for union advocacy. The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTW) for the past year has sought the full story here. It's one of the less publicized aspects of the apparent lack of accountability in the current administration. This past December, attorneys for the Springfield, Va.-based foundation 
For organized labor, if there's anything better than a federal takeover of health insurance, it's a federal takeover of health insurance with a generous tax exemption for union-sponsored plans. Union leaders, led by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (see photo), this week gave the country a first-hand lesson on how to play behind-the-scenes political hardball. Yesterday, following a three-day marathon negotiating session, the nation's 
No organization likes bad publicity. And when allied organizations create it, disavowing ties to them becomes attractive. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has exercised that option - at least on the surface. 
In Barack Obama, organized labor knows it has its man in the White House. Arguably more than any U.S. president in history, President Obama supports the union domestic agenda, ever and always anchored in aggressive government intervention in the economy. And union officials support him, having provided indispensable financial and logistical support for his campaign last year. To show his appreciation, 
Almost nobody doubts that come September, 
The 
The Department of Labor under President Obama appears to be doing everything it can to accommodate union interests, especially when it comes to investigating corruption. But a few members of Congress are openly objecting. Among them is Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. 
If transparency is one of the Obama administration's highest orders of business, it hasn't made much of an appearance at the Department of Labor (DOL). On January 20, immediately following the inauguration ceremony, President Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, issued a memorandum advising federal agencies to extend by 60 days the effective date of all regulations not yet published in the Federal Register. That gave the DOL under Secretary Hilda Solis exactly the wiggle room it needed to rescind new requirements to the annual financial reporting form for larger unions, LM-2, finalized during the waning days of the Bush administration.
