LePage's Order to Remove Labor Mural Sparks Outrage [Maine's New Republican Governor "Rocks"]

MPBN ^ | 03/23/2011 | Susan Sharon

[fight_truth_decay]

Three]panels of the 11-panel [35'] mural Gov. LePage has ordered removed from the Department of Labor.

A decision by Gov. Paul LePage to remove a mural at the Department of Labor and to rename several conference rooms that honor national and local labor leaders has outraged everyone from union activists and the Maine Democratic Party to the director of the Francis Perkins Center in Newcastle. A spokesman for the governor says the decision is intended to make everyone feel welcome when they walk through the door. But the artist who planned the mural says it only depicts historical facts.

The 11-panels depict scenes from Maine's labor history: Rosie the Riveter, child laborers, textile and woods workers and two strikes--one at a Lewiston shoe factory in 1937 and the other at the International Paper Mill in Jay in 1986.

The $60,000 work was commissioned by the DOL, paid for by private donations and hung in 2008.

Adrienne Bennett, a spokeswoman for Gov. LePage, says several unnamed people have come into both the Department of Labor and the governor's office and complained that they felt the mural is inappropriate for the setting--that it takes the union side in the ongoing struggle between management and labor.

"So we need to convey the image that we are receptive to both," Bennett says. "And the Department of Labor cannot appear to be on one side or the other."

Bennett says the DOL is also launching a contest to rename eight conference rooms that are currently named after icons, activists and historical figures in the labor movement--people such as farm worker, labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, and Frances Perkins, a former U.S. Secretary of Labor who helped establish Social Security and helped pass laws against child labor.

[fight_truth_decay]

LePage said this afternoon in a phone interview on the Boston's WRKO Howie Carr Show, that the labor murals being taken down would not be destroyed; but be placed perhaps for the long haul in a museum, that would display the history of Labor in Maine.

The Cesar Chavez room and others will be re-named.

http://audio.wrko.com/a/38404034/gov-paul-lepage-of-maine-makes-waves.htm

FULL Interview definitely worth the listen!
With call-ins on other pertinent issues, some American history, drug issues and some humor thrown in as well, after all it is the Howie Carr show.

The Liberals in Maine have been spoiled for so long--that they are in a knit picking frenzy.

Governor LePage, as promised during his campaign, meets with Maine constituents on Saturday mornings, 8-12 by appointment.

[Defintion of: "Moxie" mentioned is a Maine soft drink aka soda.]

Other controversial LePage moments can be read on the Teamsters Nation site

[fightinJAG]

*

[fight_truth_decay]

That is not a personal comment if you listened to the audio-was from a Maine constituent, that is why the quotation marks. Thank you

[Psycho_Bunny]

"The $60,000 work was commissioned by the DOL, paid for by private donations "

Another article I just read said the $60,000 was provided via a Federal grant.

[GeronL]

Commie-type propaganda

[dangus]

LEET reference in the painting?!

[Joe 6-pack]

"Another article I just read said the $60,000 was provided via a Federal grant."

Well, the funds wereprivate until they were forcibly confiscated by the Federal government...

[Raider Sam]

From a picture I saw earlier, the mural is actually painted on 4 walls of a small room in a progressive fashion. If I had to be in the room, the mural would make focusing on anything extremely difficult and might cause some physical discomfort to people with sensitivity to giant pictures a few feet from their face.

[reformedliberal]

I know an artist who has received one of these commissions. Oddly enough, her late father was a well-known labor organizer and mediator.

I think that the unions apply for the Federal grants from the Department of Labor and then, the unions make the awards, which _may_ be competitive. However, I am not sure that the candidate field isn’t pre-set, or, at the very least, only announced in union circles. Every one that I have seen is the same monumental, heroic, inspirational, Soviet Idealism style.

This sort of money could easily be found in programs such as Percent For Art or from State Arts Board monies taken from NEA. It isn’t a lot, in the government or union scheme of things.

Just more propaganda from organized labor, via tax money from the Fed.

[alreadythere]

Gov. La Page was on the Howie Carr show speaking about the mural, WGBH, this afternoon.

I was wondering how bad could it be — a ‘working people’s’ mural. Well, after seeing it — I can understand why it doesn’t seem appropriate for it’s place. It’s a Che-type statement and looks exactly like something an artist would do given a government grant. Not something I would have imagine belongs in the Maine capital building.

The mural is something that can and should be appreciated as the artistic piece that it is, but it doesn’t belong where it is at present. I’m sure Gov. LaPage will find a more appropriate place for it, as he said he is hoping to do.

Hope the good people of Maine keep LaPage long enough for him to have the positive impact on their state they desperately need.

[Chickensoup]

Hope the good people of Maine keep LaPage long enough for him to have the positive impact on their state they desperately need.

me too!

[fight_truth_decay]

..focus in on the words Strike and Solidarity as they did tonight on the local news--Maine is Open for Business LePage has stated..Maine is friendly to all workers not just unions. It [the art] will be preserved elsewhere.

[fight_truth_decay]

The media group who put out the story I posted left out part of the mural--Maine Public Broadcasting...and Think Progress shares in the Left's outrage. Think Progress and other Leftists also call LePage The TeaParty Governor. LePage was endorsed but the Tea Party but did not win because of their influence, he won on his own merits as Waterville mayor and Mardens' GM. To turn it around, LePage had not endorsed the Tea Party..he has said he is for all the people of Maine and he won with the Democrat way back, she was but a speck on the horizon. An Independent was closest to the governor elect.

There had been complaints by visiting business leaders.

[fight_truth_decay]

The mural was funded by a $600,000 grant from the federal government .. Think Progress has reported. You can read the comments on the site, the union supporters are all in a tizzy.

:)

[101voodoo]

Adrienne Bennett, a spokeswoman for Gov. LePage, says several unnamed people have come into both the Department of Labor and the governor's office and complained that they felt the mural is inappropriate for the setting--that it takes the union side in the ongoing struggle between management and labor.

Sort of like how municipalities will remove any display at all upon the complaint of just ONE (liberal) citizen who claims to be "offended"

Funny, isn't it when the shoe is on the other foot it's a painful fit?

[MSF BU]

Sitting here all set to listen to Avi Nelson, and instead RKO has 2 nimrods discussing insurance and financial planning. Did Avi’s show get canned?

[muawiyah]

Women working in war industries during WWII is hardly “commie”. You should be ashamed of yourself ~ unless, of course, you were rooting for the other side. If you were, you really dont belong here. We think of Nazis and Commies as just different jowls on the same pig.

[GeronL]

Are you crazy?

I am referring to government propaganda “art”.

[fight_truth_decay]

Avi sits in for Howie Carr sometimes..I do not get Ari where I am.

http://www.wrko.com/complete-schedule

http://www.tvguide.com/celebrities/avi-nelson/221781
[past 14 days nothing]

I do not see his name

[MSF BU]

Money Matters Weekend Edition currently holds the time slot. It is almost as if WRKO is trying to drive people into other formats and/or other stations.