Earlier this month, President-Elect George W. Bush dropped a bomb on organized labor in the form of Linda Chavez, his candidate for Labor Department secretary, who regulates how the nation's government interacts with the nation's workers.

Bush picked a doozy.

"She's an insult to American working men and women," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. Noted columnist Marianne Means: "With the Chavez nomination, Bush is signaling that he intends to further escalate his party's war on workers to keep his corporate supporters cheering."

Chavez, a conservative newspaper columnist, ultimately pulled her name from consideration to lead the Labor Department, over a flap regarding whether she housed and paid an illegal alien from Guatemala who performed domestic chores for her. At press time, Bush had nominated former United Way of America Director Elaine Chao as his second pick, but organized labor hadn't developed a stance on her appointment.

While cabinet appointees come and go, and the kind of controversies that involve Chavez are becoming more prevalent, the real story is that Bush and his "compassionate conservative" agenda had an opportunity to extend an open hand to organized labor - but instead, it was more of a fist. Bush's choice for the post should give all workers cause for concern, especially those who voted for him.

"I want to work with employers to ensure that the Department of Labor assists with the private sector," Chavez said when she initially accepted Bush's nomination, completely excluding the customary conciliatory nod to labor-management relations.

She has denounced the minimum wage and other regulations that she feels are burdensome to the business community. She is not a supporter of prevailing wage, and undoubtedly would have worked to tear down union-only project labor agreements that the Clinton Administration has supported. Chavez is against affirmative action, and dismissed Al Gore's proposals for prescription drug benefits for the elderly as "a new welfare state for the middle class."

"Chavez, like her new boss, views the big unions as an intolerable economic menace and defers to big business instead," columnist Means wrote. "This is a symbolic nomination meant to send a message that business comes first. But it is also likely to have a substantive impact that could harm the rights and well-being of millions of ordinary workers."