A Look at the Relationship Between McConnell and Chao

Posted by Stephanie Taylor on August 9, 2007 at 04:44 PM

The tragedy at the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah, where six men are currently trapped underground, has brought to light the partnership between Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and his wife, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao--and how they are aligned against the interests of working people. 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.

There’s a lot more where that came from. Read the article here.

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