Union Oversight Agency Adds Staff Entrenched in Labor Opposition

The Labor Department’s union watchdog office has quietly added a pair of aides who have a history of advocating against organized labor.

Rusty Brown, a union-avoidance consultant, started Jan. 6 as a policy adviser in the department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards, a spokeswoman confirmed to Bloomberg Law. Trey Kovacs, formerly a labor policy analyst at the free market think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute, began Jan. 21 as a special assistant at OLMS, the spokeswoman said.

The office audits union financial disclosures and investigates officer corruption. The new arrivals come at a time when business groups and Republican lawmakers have pressed ...