Monday, April 18, 2005

Not Your Father's Department of Labor

Guess what Elaine Chao's Department of Labor Harassment is doing instead of watching over workplace safety and other apparently non-essential tasks that the Labor Department used to do to help workers?

Harassing Unions, of course. And more here.

We're glad to see they've got something to do with the money they're saving by wiping out OSHA worker training program, stopping the collection of data on women workers, an cutting back enforcement of wage-and-hours laws, as Congressman George Miller (D-CA) points out:
Funding for staffing at the Department’s Wage and Hour Division, which enforces overtime, minimum wage, and child labor laws, dropped $113 million between 2001 and 2005...Meanwhile, funding for staffing at the Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS), which investigates labor unions, increased $74 million (28.2 percent) over the same period.