Bush Official Cashes in on Anti-Labor Department

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/01/25/bush-official-cashes-in-on-anti-labor-department/

by Mike Hall, Jan 25, 2008

More than six years working for the Bush administration’s Department of Labor seems to be great training for a cushy, and likely well-paid, top post in one of the largest and loudest anti-union groups around: the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).

It certainly worked out that way for Emily DeRocco, former assistant secretary of labor in charge of the Employment and Training Administration. She’s now president of NAM’s National Center for the American Workforce and a senior vice president of the group.

DeRocco’s experience highlights the Alice-in-Wonderland backward Bush world, where unlike most countries, a department of labor exists not to ensure that workers’ rights are enforced, that they are paid fairly or that workplaces are made safe.

Instead, since 2001, the Bush Labor Department wrote new rules that gutted overtime pay protection, cut workplace and mine safety enforcement and even tried to put an end to the 40-hour week. BTW, all those and other Bush anti-workers measures (check out the AFL-CIO’s BushWatch for the gory details) were backed by NAM and other big business groups.

The Washington Post notes that in 2004 DeRocco stood with Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and delivered a check for nearly half a million dollars to NAM President John Engler for NAM’s worker-training program.

Now NAM gets to hand checks to DeRocco.