Now that most unions have filed their 2011 annual financial reports, it’s time for a progress report on our new Electronic Forms System. 

The Electronic Forms System − or EFS for short − is a secure, no-cost, Web-based system for unions to file their annual financial reports with the Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards.  It replaces a prior filing system that required the purchase of an expensive digital signature.

Form LM-2 filers (unions with $250,000 or more in annual receipts) are required to file electronically. But Form LM-3 and LM-4 filers are not, and only about 2 percent of them chose to use the old system in 2011. But as of this September, 31 percent of all LM-3 and 27 percent of all LM-4 filers have filed electronically for 2011 using the new system.

A number of international unions have encouraged their smaller affiliates to file with EFS in 2011 and several of them are recognized here: 

Air Traffic Controllers − 77 percent of LM-3, 59 percent of LM-4 filers
Building and Construction Trades Department − 44 percent of LM-3 filers
Carpenters − 39 percent of LM-3 filers
Laborers − 58 percent of LM-3 and 50 percent of LM-4 filers
Locomotive Engineers − 51 percent of LM-3, 33 percent of LM-4 filers
Machinists − 55 percent of LM-3 filers, 41 percent of LM-4 filers
Painters − 39 percent of LM-3 filers
Postal Mail Handlers − 60 percent of LM-3 filers
Railroad Signalmen − 42 percent of LM-3 filers
Rural Letter Carriers − 57 percent of LM-3 filers
Workers United − 47 percent of LM-3, 70 percent of LM-4 filers

We’re off to a great start and we expect even more filers to use EFS next year. We’ve been improving EFS and have added additional capacity to handle the increased volume during the busiest filing season.  We hope those of you who used EFS will recommend it to fellow affiliates and other unions in your area. For more information about EFS − including how to obtain a username, password and PIN for your union − visit our website.

*John Lund is the Director of the Office of Labor-Management Standards.