Introduction

The LMRDA gives the US Department of Labor (DoL) exclusive authority over union election enforcement. In that capacity, the Dept. is responsible for investigating election complaints timely filed by union members and then making a determination if the election in question needs to be rerun under its supervision. AUD believes that members who file a timely protest with the Dept. need to be in turn informed in a timely manner by DoL whether their complaint has merit or not, and if not, why not.

Regarding the intent of Congress in LMRDA Title IV, Union Elections, and quoting from the U.S. Supreme Court, Dunlop v. Bachowski), ‘Congress’ concern was “to settle as quickly as practicable the cloud on the incumbents’ titles to office” 1As a result of the Bachowski case, in the instance where the complaint is denied by the Dept, the Court mandated a Statement of Reasons be issued by the Department providing the complainant with its reasons for denial of the complaint.

Over the years AUD has heard from union officer candidates frustrated with the lack of timely statements of reasons from the DoL. While the Dept. issues complainants a “closing letter” usually within three months of the date of filing their protest, this is a simple and brief letter telling the complainant their protest was not acted upon. The closing letter promises the complainant the explanation for the decision in a forthcoming statement of reasons. How long must a complainant wait for such a statement? As we reported in Union Democracy Review 227, 225 and 222, and report herein, candidates for union office who file election protests often wait a year or more.

Statement of Reasons 2022-2025

Beginning with 2022, AUD has reviewed the DoL’s publicly available list of Statements of Reasons annually. Table 1 shows the wait times by year from 2022 to 2025 (year to date). (The 2025 statements are updated by DoL through August 5, 2025, and include statements issued from January through July 15). There are 36 statements issued so far in 2025 and the average wait time has increased to 427 days, or an increase of 95 days compared with 2024. Taking the four-year period, there were 174 statements issued, and the average wait time was 341 days.

While the 2023 data indicated improvement, 2024 and 2025 have been the two worst years. As Table 2 shows, the average wait of 427 days in 2025 was 95 days worse than 2024 and 127 days worse than 2023. Even if we exclude four of the thirty-six statements from 2025 that had unusually long waits of over 850 days, the average wait has still increased by 74 days from 2024 to 2025.

AUD Communications with DoL

After reviewing the 2022 data, and considering comments from union members, AUD sent a letter to the DoL’s Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS) in April 2023. We asked for an explanation for the (in our view) inordinate length of time and urged quicker statement issuance. Second we urged that DoL should, when it conducts a supervised rerun election for one office, for example, President, yet the election for another office, say Vice President, in the same election, is not rerun despite a complaint about it, that the latter, rejected complainant should receive a statement. The policy at the time was that such a failed complainant is not due a statement because DoL is rerunning part of the election. AUD believes that any losing complainant deserves a statement. Our letter also pointed out instances made known to us when candidates who filed a complaint never received a closing letter.

In May 2023 the DoL’s OLMS Chief of Enforcement Tracy Shanker responded to AUD. As to the delay in issuing the statement the Dept. held that because of the need to ensure each statement was researched and written so as to be able to withstand any legal challenges, extended lengths of time resulted. The Dept. held that resource constraints made giving a statement to a losing complainant in a rerun election impossible, and regarding not receiving a closing letter, it was policy in every field office to issue such closing letters, and DoL could not explain why a candidate would not receive one.

With the improvement in 2023, AUD contacted DoL again and the Dept. cited improved coordination between the OLMS and the DoL’s Office of the Solicitor was a factor that might explain the improvement (the latter office writes the statement based on material from OLMS’s investigations). But clearly, this improvement has not held up.

Conclusion

When AUD reported on the drop off in timeliness for 2024, a former OLMS regional director commented; “After filing a complaint regarding the election of a union officer, which is investigated and ultimately closed, members should receive a Statement of Reasons …The response to members should be prompt. Lawsuits must be filed in federal court within 60 days of submitting an election complaint for action cases; therefore, it should not take an extended amount of time to issue a statement for a closed case.”

We agree and urge the Department to improve its operations.

1.No. 74-466 (Argued April 21, 1975, Decided June 2, 1975, 421 U.S. 560 CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT