Did a ‘union buster’ really file a federal disclosure report from the grave?
Records show a financial disclosure report was filed with the U.S. labor department in January, under penalty of perjury, with the signature of a man who died last year.
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Peter List, a longtime labor consultant from South Carolina, filed a financial disclosure report with the U.S. Department of Labor this past January, disclosing payments made to subcontracted labor consultants — commonly described as persuaders or “union busters” — that he’d enlisted for various ‘union avoidance’ gigs in 2025.
His report revealed that his anti-union consulting firm, Logic Labor Relations LLC, disbursed over $500,000 in payments last year to consultants his firm subcontracted to crush union organizing drives at Sysco in California and Tennessee; Mission Foods in California; Spec’s Wine, Spirits & Finer Foods in Texas; meal delivery service Factor in Illinois; and the Flowers Baking Company of Oxford in Pennsylvania.
List, formerly of the firm Kulture Consulting, filed this report with the federal Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS), a division of the Department of Labor, on Jan. 29, 2026 under penalty of perjury that all of the information submitted in the report “has been examined by the signatory and is, to the best of the undersigned's knowledge and belief, true, correct, and complete.”
Thing is, List also died last year at age 60, and was publicly mourned by fellow union avoidance consultants online who’d worked with him in the past.
Here’s his obituary, in which he’s described as a father, husband, and “one of the most sought-after labor consultants … held in high regard by everyone who knew and worked with him.”
A ghost can’t file digital reports with the federal government.
So, the real question is: Who filed this report on behalf of List — perhaps his firm’s treasurer, Stephanie Bari, who also signed the report? And what penalties could or will they face for filing a report under his name?
Obviously, I decided to ask the federal Office of Labor Management Standards these questions. After several days and follow-up emails, a department spokesperson told me in mid-Feburary that the agency would review the information I provided in my inquiry, which “suggests” that List didn’t actually file the report.
“Please note that, pursuant to longstanding agency policy, OLMS can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigative activity,” the spokesperson added.
Within two weeks of my initial email, however, an amended report, signed only by Bari, was filed on Feb. 24, disclosing the same information (expenditures, etc.) but without feigning List’s signature.
Bob Funk, the founder and director of the watchdog group LaborLab, for his part, wasn’t surprised by the falsified report. “This is a vivid illustration of how little the union-busting industry fears the U.S. Department of Labor and the disclosure obligations they’re required to meet,” Funk told me.
“What we’re seeing is an industry that operates with impunity because it knows enforcement is virtually nonexistent,” he said. “That’s the complete opposite of the standard workers and their unions are held to.”
Why are these reports filed at all?
Under the Labor Management Reporting Disclosure Act of 1959, third-party consultants contracted by employers to directly “persuade” employees not to join a union are required to file financial disclosure reports annually with the federal government, known as LM-21s. These reports detail persuaders’ earnings from union-busting gigs and disbursements they make to any subcontractors they enlist for these jobs.
LM21’s are different from the reports that I generally include in Caring Class Revolt’s union buster roundups, which are known as LM-20s. Those reports disclose the initial agreements made between a consultant and employer, and must be filed by the consultant within 30 days of entering into such an agreement.
According to the federal government’s filing instructions, individuals who sign these reports “are personally responsible for its filing and accuracy” and “are subject to criminal penalties for willful failure to file a required report and/or for false reporting.”
The U.S. Secretary of Labor (currently, Trump appointee Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who’s facing misconduct allegations and reportedly on thin ice) is also authorized to bring a civil action against any person who has violated persuader reporting requirements under the LMRDA.
Yet, it’s well-known in labor circles (at least the folks I’ve talked to) that these individuals have historically never received anything more than a slap on the wrist for including inaccurate information in these reports, failing to include information they are legally obligated to disclose, or for failing to file a mandated report on-time or at all.
Notably, federal law does not authorize the labor department to bring civil monetary penalties against persuaders who flout their reporting obligations. Labor unions, however, have historically been held to a higher standard when it comes to their own reporting requirements — a finding that’s not lost on the feds or Funk.
“The federal government takes enforcement very seriously when it comes to worker-led organizations like unions, but corporations and their union-busting consultants are free to operate in the dark, infringing on the rights of working people with little fear of consequences,” Funk said. “That double standard isn’t an accident. It's a feature of a system that was never designed to hold this industry accountable.”
A report published by LaborLab last year found that the labor department has taken a much more aggressive approach to holding labor unions accountable for compliance with federal reporting requirements — and following up with them if they don’t — while delinquent filers on the persuader side have had much more free reign to, well, continue skirting federal law.
In fact, a U.S. House committee flagged this issue through their own investigation into the issue more than 40 years ago.
“While each year more than 50,000 unions file a detailed account of their activities and finances with the Department of Labor, there is widespread non-compliance by employers and labor relations consultants,” reads a U.S. House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee report, published in 1984. “In spite of this lopsided compliance, the Department has systematically dismantled its employer and consultant reporting enforcement program. The Department of Labor is clearly failing to enforce important provisions of the LMRDA.”
A multimillion-dollar shadow industry
In life, List was part of a multimillion-dollar industry that aids employers (small business owners and larger employers alike) in fending off unionization drives.
Generally this is done through one-on-one or group captive audience meetings with workers, teaching managers how to talk down the union without violating federal labor law, drawing up anti-union literature, and putting together anti-union presentations to convince workers that forming a union won’t do anything for them, and may actually reduce their pay or put their jobs at risk.
Some persuaders use fake names, report false addresses for their businesses to the feds (without consequence), and manipulate information about unions in discussions with workers to make the idea of remaining union-free the most appealing option — as the persuader prepares for a lucrative check from the workers’ boss.
List, a former product technician for AT&T and steward for the Communications Workers of America, was considered a “towering figure in the field” of union avoidance, according to fellow persuader Joe Brock, a former Teamster who today leads the anti-union consulting firm East Coast Labor Relations.
According to an article from the since-discontinued Fortune Small Business Magazine, published in 2004, List lost his union job with AT&T when it was outsourced to Mexico in 1992. He then reportedly returned to college to study labor relations and became disillusioned with the organized labor movement.
“Over time List developed a strongly pro-capitalist, antigovernment ideology that still guides him,” the article reads. “As a firm believer in Ayn Rand's philosophy of radical individualism, he opposes all state efforts to regulate labor relations.”
List went on to snag snag union-avoidance gigs for companies such as Hello Fresh, Keurig Dr. Pepper, Coca Cola, and Whole Foods. He also hosted a podcast, Labor Relations Radio, where he’d invite on anti-union activists, attorneys, and fellow persuaders to discuss hot labor issues of the day.
But this is a Florida labor blog and List wasn’t based in Florida, so you might be wondering: Why am I even writing about this at all?
First, because I wasn’t sure anyone else had noticed that a federal report filed, again, under penalty of perjury, contained the signature of a man who was no longer alive to file the report himself.
Second, although he doesn’t have any direct Florida ties that I’m aware of, List’s firms were occasionally contracted to counter organizing drives in the Sunshine State. In 2016, List’s firm was paid over $100,000 to crush an organizing campaign at a Whole Foods distribution center in Pompano Beach. In the years that followed, List was also hired to dissuade warehouse workers (in 2017) and drivers (in 2019) employed by Sysco — the global food distributor — in South Florida from organizing with the Teamsters Local 769.
And List wasn’t cheap.
For that Sysco job, List reported billing Sysco an hourly rate of $375 per consultant, “plus actual and reasonable expenses,” through his older firm Kulture Consulting, according to his LM-20.
All in all, Sysco paid List’s firm nearly $70,000 for that 2017 job and another $146,184 in 2019, according to Sysco’s own financial disclosure reports. In 2024, Sysco even brought List back — this time through his newer firm, Logic Labor Relations — to similarly persuade Sysco workers in Medley, Florida against unionization, ultimately paying his firm roughly $60,000 for the job.
That kind of spending isn’t abnormal though.
Consultants these days regularly bill employers $3,000 to $4,000 per day, or upwards of $400 per hour to convince their workers they don’t need to organize a union for higher wages or stronger benefits themselves.
Some of these persuaders are former union officials who later switched sides. Others are business consultants, former HR professionals, or employer-side attorneys.
Heck, one consultant who was contracted to thwart an Amazon organizing campaign last year, Jared Rodriguez, is currently sitting on a small city council in South Florida (granted, there’s no record of him doing this ‘union avoidance’ work during his time as a public official).
Rusty Brown, another former union avoidance consultant — now a lobbyist for the right-wing Freedom Foundation — lobbied the Florida Legislature this year to further undermine union rights and protections for most of Florida’s local and state government workers.
Funk, the union buster watchdog, believes the U.S. labor department has the tools they need to force compliance from anti-union consultants, but hasn’t demonstrated the political will to do so, even under more labor-friendly administrations.
“The DOL could start tomorrow by ramping up enforcement, targeting serial non-compliers, and making clear there are real consequences for filing false disclosures,” Funk argued. “The tools exist. What’s missing is the institutional will to use them.”