Marathon Pundit: Labor Dept. proposing rule that would effect lawyer-client confidentiality

The overreach never ends with the Obama administration. Today it's the turn of the Labor Department:

From a Detroit News op-ed:

The U.S. Labor Department has proposed a new rule that would have the effect either of requiring attorneys to disclose confidential information about their clients, or deprive business — especially small business — of the ability to hire attorneys to advise them on labor-management issues. It's another assault on business and should be junked.

Since 1959, the federal Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act has required businesses to file a report when they hire an outside firm to engage in what are known as persuasion services on union organizing issues. Typically, this involves giving talks to workers, or mailing them materials from the employer's point of view. The shorthand for this regulation is the "persuader rule."

But for years, the Labor Department has exempted lawyer-client advice from the persuader rule — as long as the lawyers themselves don't have any direct contact with their clients' employees.

Now, the Labor Department wants to change this interpretation of the persuader rule to bring labor relations lawyers within the scope of the regulation. The proposed expansion of the rule would not merely require businesses to disclose that they have hired attorneys to advise them on labor-management issues during a union organizing drive. It would also require the lawyers to disclose when they have been hired to advise firms on how to deal with organizing issues and also to reveal to the Labor Department the nature of the legal tasks they have been hired to perform. The proposed regulation would also require lawyers to reveal their payments for advice on alllabor relations issues for all of their clients, regardless of whether or not the advice involves persuasion activities in a union organizing drive.