When it comes to the crappification of all useful government functions in the last seven years, the Department of Labor doesn't get as much press as FEMA or the EPA, but not for lack of trying; Bush's Labor Secretary Elaine Chao has been doing her best to make the whole Reagan crew look like Eliot Ness. The National Labor Relations Board is doing its bit too(*)

(* I had the honor of getting screwed by one of the Bush NLRB's first rulings, when I was working for the Darth Vader of West Coast medicine, Sutter Health; Sutter managed to block an organizing drive because of a technicality about which clerical workers to include in the bargaining unit, but not before they spent a bazillion dollars hiring a union-busting outfit whose tactics were sleazy enough to actually lose them a lawsuit a few years later.)

but Chao is a real piece of work. I don't think most people have any idea how directly the anti-union climate these days is being driven by the White House. Last month American Rights at Work started the website Shame on Elaine, which has some pretty good links to add to the mountain of crap that someone will have to start trying to fix next year. But all you really need to know is in this item from an article about mine safety in 2006:

When Bush chose her, Chao was making more than $200,000 a year as a "fellow" at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative, corporate-funded think tank in Washington. While she was there, Heritage scholar D. Mark Wilson issued a report titled How to Close Down the Department of Labor, in which he blasted Labor's "excessive burdens on businesses." Chao hired Wilson as deputy assistant secretary in charge of workplace standards.