"'President Elect Donald Trump's Cabinet selections raise deep concerns for us,' stated Dr. Gabriela D. Lemus, President of Progressive Congress. 'Though he vilified Wall Street and Washington, DC -- stating he will 'drain the swamp' -- he has instead chosen people with deep Washington and Wall Street connections. These are the very same types of folks he vilified as greedy, corrupt and out of touch during his campaign for the Presidency. Steven Mnuchin's ties to Goldman Sachs -- whose CEO was featured in one of Trump's campaign ads with the accusation of 'robbing from the working class' -- is a slap in the face to workers everywhere and stands in stark contrast to his rhetoric. Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary is akin to putting the fox in the hen house and expecting the chickens to thrive."
And Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren issued a joint statement that ends saying, "This pick makes clear that Donald Trump wants to cater to the same Wall Street executives that have hurt working families time and again."
"An Extinction-Level Event For American Labor"
Harold Meyerson writes at The American Prospect, in How a Trump Presidency Could Kill the American Union...
"[O]ne longtime union staff member told me that Trump's victory was 'an extinction-level event for American labor.'
"He may be right."
Elaine Chao was "W" Bush's Secretary of Labor. Trump has nominated her to be his Transportation Secretary. She is the wife of Republican Senate majority Leader Mitch McConnell. (So much for "draining the swamp.") She is the daughter of an American shipping-company owner whose ships are all registered in Liberia to dodge US taxes. She was a banker at Citicorp and is a Board member of Wells Fargo, the fraud bank, and News Corp, parent of FOX News.
Secretary of Labor Chao led efforts to fight against unions and working people. The NY Times covered this in a 2009 story, Departing Secretary of Labor Fends Off Critics...
"'We don't think the secretary serves the interests of workers very effectively,' said Bill Samuel, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s director of government affairs. 'There have been virtually no new regulations on workplace hazards except those required by the courts. And she seemed to take the side of employers more than workers when there were conflicts.'
"'It feels like when my kids boast I'm getting a 'C' rather than a 'D,' said Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice, a group of religious and labor leaders that seeks to help low-wage workers. 'What they've done is a drop in the bucket compared to the size of the problem of wage theft.'"
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) wrote in 2003, in Chao's "Insulting" Behavior Stuns Labor Leaders...
"Insulting" and "condescending" comments by Labor Secretary Elaine Chao so angered union leaders at last week's AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting in Florida that even those unions that have been largely supportive of President George W. Bush -- the Teamsters and some building trades -- are now expected to oppose his reelection.
"The Post reported that Chao 'shocked' the group by opposing any increase in the minimum wage, showing no sympathy for retired steelworkers who lost pension benefits, and reciting a list of legal actions her department has taken against unions and their leaders."
Bloomberg News, in Transport Pick Chao Gets Conservatives' Praise, Labor Criticism, looked at her record as Labor Secretary...
"'She was not only hostile to unions, she was hostile to all workers,' said David Madland, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a progressive policy group. 'The only thing they really did was promulgate new rules to make it much harder for unions to operate.'
"Chao issued regulations requiring more disclosure of union spending on lobbying and politics and passed rules that Democrats said created too many white-collar exemptions to overtime pay requirements. Republicans, however, defended the rules as adding overtime protection for 1.3 million workers."
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