Rep. Harris W. Fawell (R-Ill.) announced Sep. 24 that he will introduce legislation to amend the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act prior to the adjournment of Congress next month. Fawell, Chairman of the Employer-Employee Relations Subcommittee of the Workforce Committee, said during the latest in a series of hearings on “impediments to union democracy” that he has come to the conclusion that the “goals” of the 1959 law, also known as the Landrum-Griffin Act, “are not always reached.” The proposed legislation that is largely based on the recommendations of two leading experts on union democracy, Prof. Clyde Summers of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Herman Benson, founder of the Association for Union Democracy, who both testified at earlier hearings of the subcommittee. Fawell’s announcement came as he opened a hearing into charges that the rights of members of the approximately 200-member American Radio Association are being violated. Witnesses accused union officers of a variety of abuses, including failing to provide the membership with pension and medical plan information and improper expenditure of union funds on officers’ salaries and expenditures. [BNA 9/25/98]
