The governor of Maine is understandably upset about a huge, anti-business, pro-Big Labor mural installed in 2008 on a wall in the state Labor Department.
As Gov. Paul LePage’s office pointed out, the name of the agency is the “Department of Labor – not the Department of Organized Labor.” Its purpose should be to uphold labor laws impartially, not to send a message of favoritism toward unions.
Yet the 36-foot-long mural depicts heartbreaking images of child labor and mistreated adult workers, and it casts strikes and union organizers in a favorable light. Businesses are represented almost entirely in a negative way, when they are represented at all.
We doubt that Big Labor would approve if a government agency posted a giant mural depicting the well-documented history of union gangsterism and violence. And of course such a mural would be equally inappropriate in a government building.
The point is, government agencies should be upholding the law, not seeking to inflame one side or the other in some political dispute.