First I want to thank thisisnotanexit for first addressing the Chao-McConnell connection to Robert Murray and his corrupt mining operations in an August 7 diary.
The purpose of this diary is not to be repetitive (although some details will be duplicated) but to provide a fuller picture of how a marriage comprised of a Senator and a Cabinet official can be an ominous weapon in the arsenal of those who would make an end run around representative democracy.
As a Senator from Kentucky, Mitch McConnell heavily counts on political contributions from large mining interests to help keep him in office. Natch, once ensconced in the halls of power he has long lists of favors to return.
But McConnell is in a unique position to deliver the gravy to mining and other corporate interests: he happens to be married to the BushCo's Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, a woman quite obviously installed in this position to undermine any progress of workers' rights, safety legislation or wage improvements.
For those of you interested in how the Senator and his wife do double duty for their corporate cronies, this is a good place to start.
The incident in which uber-capitalist (and corporate fascist freak) Robert Murray called out Tim Thompson, an MSHA district manager and staunch Republican, for giving him such a hard time over his safety violations---making a vulgar remark about his friendship with McConnell and how Mitch was "sleeping with your boss"---is now infamous. If you haven't read it, you can read it here courtesy of thisisnotanexit's vigilance.
Thompson was dutifully forced out of his pervue and transferred to another district---a transfer he fought for three years before resigning.
Perhaps there was a good reason for Murray's bizarre meltdown before the assembled corporate news media a few days ago. He has to know that since the latest batch of trapped miners are apparently dead, this tragedy will trigger yet another investigation---this time in the hands of an opposition-party Congress---who may just get to the bottom of a legacy of corrupt tag-team efforts by Chao and McConnell to undermine health, safety and wage regulations not just in mining but in a host of large industries.
When it comes to workplace-related issues such as mine safety, the McConnell-Chao marriage presents an intriguing target for industry donors. At the Labor Department, Chao has taken what some reports say is a relaxed attitude toward the regulation of coal mines and an approach that labor unions perceive as hostile.
Sometimes Chao achieves what her husband cannot in the Senate, such as a wage freeze her department instituted on certain farmworkers.
Chao attends her husband's fund-raisers, chats with his donors and seeds her agency with his former aides. Chief among them is Deputy Labor Secretary Steven Law, whose last job was helping McConnell tap donors -- Bob Murray included -- at the National Republican Senatorial Committee. They collected an impressive $187 million in four years there.
Chao declined to comment for this story. (Law, who did comment, said politics do not influence the Labor Department.)
McConnell recently said he neither asks Chao to favor his donors nor advises her on Labor Department activities. "She doesn't need any direction from me," he said. "In fact, I think that's a little bit insulting." It's hardly surprising they both push the Republican Party agenda in their jobs, he said.
"I'm a Republican, and I generally support what the Bush administration is trying to do," McConnell said. "She takes her orders from the White House."
More tag team action from the Dynamic Duo as Mitch throws the pass and Elaine "picks it up and runs with it":
For example, McConnell filed legislation for three years, starting in 1998, to curb the mandatory annual raise in wages of legal immigrant farmworkers under the government's H2A program. By 2001, the wage in Kentucky was $6.60 an hour, which struck some agricultural businesses as too high. (Agribusinesses have given McConnell more than $1 million for his campaigns -- out of $21 million from all donors over 22 years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.) But the bills kept failing.
In 2001, Chao ordered an indefinite delay in the release of an annual Labor Department wage report that triggered the farmworker raise. It was an insider move, not noticed by most Americans, but praised by McConnell's Republican congressional colleagues and business groups in letters obtained from Chao's office.
Farmworker Justice sued Chao on behalf of immigrant workers, and in 2002, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ordered her to resume publishing the wage report in a timely fashion.
In 2002, McConnell filed an amendment to a corporate ethics bill that would force unions -- whom McConnell criticizes for supporting Democrats over Republicans -- to file far more detailed public reports on their spending. His amendment drew protest from unions, and four Republicans joined with Democrats to defeat it.
The next year, Chao announced stricter rules on unions' expense disclosures through the Labor Department's mandatory reporting system. Unions now must itemize every expense of $5,000 or more. The unions protested, but her order was upheld.
Richard Berman, a corporate lobbyist whose clients include McConnell donors, seized on the newly released financial data to launch a Web site, UnionFacts.com. The Web site -- like McConnell -- criticizes unions for giving more money to Democrats than Republicans. It also alleges criminal activities and urges union members to quit.
Berman's organization, The Center for Union Facts, found an ideological ally in Chao's Labor Department.
Berman and Chao both send aides to attend First Friday Labor Reform Working Group meetings on Capitol Hill, where Republican congressional staff and lobbyists brief each other on union policy. Labor Department e-mails obtained in June show Berman's staff and Chao's aides sharing union criticism, organizing lunches and promoting Berman's Web site within the department.
Berman declined to talk about his relationship to Chao, a spokeswoman said.
The watchdog group that obtained the e-mails, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said McConnell, a conservative Republican senator, can choose to side with corporations. But the labor secretary should not be so "cozy" with businesses, said Melanie Sloan, CREW president.
"The Labor Department is supposed to be there for the American worker," Sloan said.
$375,000 -- Mining industry donations to McConnell's Senate campaigns
$200,000 -- Chinese-American donations to McConnell from out of state
$8,000 -- First donation to McConnell from the Chao family
Indeed, the Chao-McConnells never seem to rest in their tireless quest to create more misery for the American worker:
For example, the Food Marketing Institute lobbied the Senate and the Labor Department after President Bush took office in 2001 to kill the mandatory ergonomics rules that President Clinton had intended to protect workers from repetitive-stress injuries. The institute says it represents 26,000 grocery stores.
At the urging of the institute and other business groups, in 2001 McConnell and the GOP Senate narrowly approved a resolution declaring that Clinton's safety rules "shall have no force or effect."
But it was Chao, after the food institute's officials approached her, who sealed the deal by replacing Clinton's safety rules with "voluntary guidelines," the institute told its members in a newsletter.
"The proposed voluntary guidelines will give our member companies helpful suggestions," the group's chief executive, Tim Hammonds, said in a statement thanking Chao for "the new spirit of cooperation."
The institute, which had contributed at least $13,000 to McConnell in the 1990s, upped its donations, giving him nearly $13,000 more during Chao's first two years as labor secretary. Officials of the institute declined to comment.
"There's definitely an overlap in what they're doing, and McConnell makes no bones about it," said Bruce Goldstein, director of Farmworker Justice, a Washington non-profit that advocates for laborers.
Now that we are neck-deep in campaign steam for the 2008 election, who amongst the Dems will pick up the baton on corporo-government collusion and the literal death and destruction it brings? Another excellent analysis is here.
Elsewhere in the grand old U S of A, Murray has been a busy beaver.
Nowhere is Murray's companies' safety record more dismal than Galatia, the southern Illinois mine Murray bought in 1998, which has piled up 2,787 violations since June 2005. Of those, 660 violations were considered significant and substantial, meaning the hazard could "result in an injury or illness of a reasonably serious nature." MSHA issued 94 orders requiring safety issues to be fixed immediately.
But in recent months, the fines mounted, as inspectors found that American Coal Company, a Murray subsidiary, failed to take prompt action to fix the problems found at the mine.
"This was really bad. It raises those red flags," said Ellen Smith, owner and managing editor of the publication Mine Safety and Health News, who reported on the high fines at the Illinois mine last month. "Galatia, when you look at that record, it kind of stands out and you go, 'What's wrong here?' "
American Coal Company is contesting $617,039 in fines and more than $1 million in fines have been proposed, but the company has not yet responded, so those figures may be reduced.
Galatia also has an accident rate above the national average - in 2003 more than twice the national average - for comparable mines since Murray bought it, although the accident rate has fallen in recent years.
The Powhatan Mine in Ohio has, likewise, had an accident rate above the national average in nine of the past 13 years.
In 2003, four mine officials and KenAmerican Resources Inc., another Murray subsidiary, were convicted of 10 counts of illegally using improper ventilation, using two continuous mining machines and lying to federal investigators about the practice.
KenAmerican was ordered to pay a $306,000 fine. The Justice Department appealed, asking for a harsher penalty, but an appeals court rejected the request.
In the wake of the Utah deaths, will Mitch decline to run for reelection "due to health reasons"? Will Chao suddenly decide "to spend more time with the family"? Tune in tomorrow for another thrilling installment of As The Stomach Turns....