Labor Secretary's Talk Angers Union Leaders
Speaking at the AFL-CIO's winter meeting yesterday, the Bush Administration's Labor Department Secretary Elaine Chao struck a confrontational note, failing to address labor leaders' concerns about wages and unemployment, and insinuating that unions are riddled with corruption. Questioned about potentially costly new union reporting regulations the administration is considering, Ms. Chao responded by reading from a prepared file on union infractions, seven examples of supposed corruption in the questioner's union---never mentioning that all of the examples were uncovered by the union's own investigations. Chao's actions seem to have been the last straw for an American labor movement fed up with an anti-labor presidency out of touch with working Americans (see WIT's for Feb. 10, Jan. 27 and 10, 2003, and Dec 10, and 4, 2002), causing Teamsters President and former Bush ally James Hoffa Jr. to suggest that the labor movement should do everything possible to elect a pro-worker president in 2004.
See "Labor Secretary's Talk Angers Union Leaders", STEVEN GREENHOUSE, The New York Times, February 26, 2003