Lately, though, the attacks have extended beyond the office itself. The liberal Center for American Progress released a 28-page report this month that singles out the agency’s director, Don Todd, in a highly personal attack on his character. The report mentions Todd by name on 29 occasions and accuses him of being a political hack determined to sabotage unions.

“The underlying purpose,” the report concluded, “is to undermine the reputation of the labor union movement through a classic political misinformation campaign -- all under the supervision of a lifelong partisan political operative whose career has been dedicated to the destruction of his political opponents.”

Todd has not commented publicly about the report, but a Department of Labor spokesman dismissed it, noting that the office has brought greater transparency to rank-and-file workers within the confines of the law. As a result of the increased enforcement, the office has helped bring corrupt union officers to justice.

In the past month alone, for example, a former financial secretary for the United Mine Workers in Wheeling, W.Va., was sentenced to a year in prison for embezzling more than $70,000 in union funds, an office secretary for the Plasterers in Denver pleaded guilty to embezzling $28,480 in union money, and the former president of National Treasury Employees Union in Detroit pleaded guilty to one count of bank robbery.

News stories about union corruption are not what Big Labor wants the public -- or its rank-and-file -- to see. It’s no wonder John Sweeney and his union cohorts are doing what they can to shut down the one agency in the federal government that looks out for union workers.