Mitch McConnells wife...enjoy...oh dont forget to look at her father... the corruption is in plain sight people....A few months after Secretary Chao left office, the prestigious annual Mercatus Scorecard for government agency performance in 2008 was issued and warmly received by Chaos successor, Hilda L. Solis, whose comments were included in a departmental press release summarizing the report: In the 10 years of the Mercatus Scorecard, the Department of Labor has secured the top ranking five times; the previous four were consecutive (fiscal years 2002 to 2005). The departments FY 2006 and FY 2007 reports were ranked second. Mercatus ranks agencies reports on 12 criteria worth five points each, in three categories: transparency, public benefits and leadership. The Labor Departments report scored 56 out of 60, which is the highest ever on the Mercatus Scorecard. The department also scored a perfect 20 in transparency. The Mercatus Centers report noted the following on this departments efforts: The Department of Labor is a leader in developing innovations and improvements on many fronts with respect to performance accountability and reporting. The Labor report systematically assesses and rates the quality of its data for each performance goal, a best practice for other agencies to emulate. [17][18] Washington Post columnist Al Kamen has described Mercatus as a staunchly anti-regulatory center funded largely by Koch Industries Inc.[19][20] The Mercatus Center is a 501(c)3 non-profit and does not receive support from George Mason University, where it is located, nor from or any federal, state or local governments. It is entirely funded through donations, including corporate donations from Koch Industries[19] During Chaos first four years as Secretary of Labor, OSHA did not promulgate a single significant health standard.[21] After analyzing 70,000 closed case files from 2005 to 2007, the Government Accountability Office reported that the Departments Wage and Hour Division inadequately investigated complaints from low-wage and minimum wage workers alleging that employers failed to pay the federal minimum wage, required overtime, and failed to issue a last paycheck.[22] The acting administrator of Wage and Hour Division, Alexander J. Passantino, subsequently noted in testimony on July 15, 2008 before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor that: “WHD has recovered more than $1.25 billion for nearly two million workers since 2001. In FY 2007, over 341,000 workers received recovered back wages—the second largest number of workers since 1993, and the amount of wages recovered for workers—$220,613,703—is the highest total the agency has ever recorded. This represents a 67 percent increase over back wages recovered in 2001, and is more than twice the amount collected in fiscal year 1997. In fact, WHD total back wage collections for the last seven fiscal years represent a 28 percent increase over the back wage collections for the seven fiscal years beginning in 1994 and ending in 2000. During this same time period, WHD also increased by 10 percent the number of workers for whom it collected back wages.“[23] The Department of Labors Wage and Hour Division 2008 Statistics Fact Sheet notes that: The Employment Standards Administration’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) recovered more than $185 million in back wages for over 228,000 employees in fiscal year 2008 to put the eight-year cumulative total of back wages collected by the agency at over $1.4 billion. [24] Chaos tenure as Labor Secretary saw two mine disasters for which she received criticism. Twelve miners were killed in the Sago Mine disaster on January 2, 2006, and three rescue workers died in the Crandall Canyon Mine disaster on August 6, 2007. Before the mines collapsed, Chao had cut more than a hundred coal mine safety inspectors, resulting in hundreds of mines forgoing strict inspection.[25] According to the Christian Science Monitor, Nearly half of the 208 safety citations levied in 2005 against the Sago coal mine where 12 men died this week were serious and substantial.[26] On December 10, 2008, Secretary Chao announced that the U.S. Department of Labors Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) had, in the first year of the agencys 100 Percent Plan, achieved its goal of completing every mandated regular inspection for the year. That success marked the first time in the agencys 31-year history that every mandated regular inspection was completed within the year.[27] A 2008 report by the departments inspector general found that despite implementation of the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006 (MINER Act), mine safety regulators did not conduct federally required inspections at more than 14 percent of the countrys 731 underground coal mines during the previous year. The number of worker deaths in mining accidents more than doubled to 47.[28] A 2009 internal audit appraising an Occupational Safety and Health Administration initiative under the Bush administration to focus special attention on problem workplaces revealed that OSHA employees failed to gather needed data, conducted uneven inspections and enforcement, and sometimes failed to discern repeat fatalities because records misspelled the companies names or failed to notice when two subsidiaries with the same owner were involved, resulting in preventable workplace fatalities.[29]en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Chao#Family
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 17:19:05 +0000
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