Why did Labor Secretary Hilda Solis move quickly to change disclosure requirements for unions and their political activities?  Don Loos at Big Government connects the dots and discovers the Obama administration’s attempts to get their allies in Big Labor out of the line of ACORN fire.  For instance, the education unions NEA and AFT both gave big money to the very office in New York City that offered free advice on hiding child prostitution and tax evasion:

Even before U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis was sworn in, Big Labor insiders like AFL-CIO lawyer and Obama appointee Deborah Greenfield were busily dismantling useful union financial disclosures produced by former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.  It’s another Big Government – Big Labor partnership aimed at keeping individual workers, whom they claim to represent, in the dark.

Why the hurry? Perhaps Union Bosses wanted to prevent the Virginia GOP and inquisitive people like Patrick Semmens from visiting DOL’s UnionReports.gov website that clearly reveals the Big Labor-ACORN collusion.  Semmens discovered that teachers’ union bosses gave about $500,000 to the same Brooklyn ACORN office exposed on BigGovernment.com.  Both the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) awarded ACORN service contracts.

That’s right; union bosses gave teachers’ forced union dues to the same ACORN that appeared to have no problem facilitating child prostitution.  No wonder Solis’ Big Labor friends want to shutdown financial disclosure!

Before 2008, unions could hide these connections in murky financial records that even their own members could not access.  Towards the end of the Bush administraton, Chao promulgated new transparency requirements that forced unions to divulge their political activities.  Loos provides graphic evidence for the massive improvement in transparency between the status quo and the status quo ante.

Barack Obama ran for office on a promise of increased transparency.  Instead, he has had his Labor Depatrtment move in the exact opposite direction to provide political cover for unions and their ties to political organizing groups like ACORN — groups that also work to elect Democrats.  We should demand that Solis stop dismantling these transparency regulations and for Obama to fulfill this campaign promise.  Be sure to read it all.