New tool makes union finances easier to understand

Every year, the Office of Labor-Management Standards collects thousands of detailed financial reports from unions. The largest unions file a detailed report called Form LM-2, which can be hundreds of pages long. We collected over 5,000 LM-2 reports in fiscal year 2025 alone. When I arrived just over a year ago, I recognized that these reports have a lot of useful information for rank-and-file union members, union leadership, researchers, the media, and the public — but their size and format make them difficult to navigate.

In line with President Trump’s directives to improve federal technology, we got to work updating our online disclosure website. Anyone can now explore LM-2 reports through an accessible data visualization tool with interactive graphs, charts, searchable tables, and even multi-year comparisons. The full reports are still available, but our data tool provides a user-friendly, clear way to view information like dues collected, membership, assets, leadership salaries, and more.

For example, a union member who wants to look at officer and employee compensation over the past five years would start by visiting UnionReports.gov to find their union. On the union’s report filing page, they would click the “View” button in the “Visualization” column to launch the interactive tool. From there, they can navigate using the tabs on the left to explore different categories. The “Officer and Employee Compensation” tab provides a detailed, searchable list of payments to all officers and employees for a specific year. They could also select the “Multi-Year Comparison” tab, which offers charts and graphs displaying compensation data and other financial information across several years, and gives a clearer picture of the union’s financial activities over time.

This new tool is the result of a multi-agency collaboration with our colleagues in the Office of the Chief Information Officer with a process that can be replicated by other department agencies. Developed in-house in just 78 business days — with software costs of less than $600 — it’s an example of government efficiency at its best. And this is the first step in a larger project: We plan to add similar visualization tools for other reports, including those filed by employers and their labor relations consultants (Forms LM-10, LM-20, and LM-21).

An important part of our mission is advancing labor union and labor-management transparency through reporting and disclosure requirements. Our new tool puts American workers first by helping union members engage in the governance of their unions and helping employees make informed choices about union representation. We invite everyone to explore the tool at UnionReports.gov.

Elisabeth Messenger is the director of the Office of Labor-Management Standards, an agency of the U.S. Department of Labor.