The vast majority of Americans who go to work at the Department of Labor do so because they want to protect the rights and safety of workers. So it was a bitter blow for Labor Department employees to have to spend eight years taking orders from Elaine Chao, who has performed as the pro-business Secretary of Labor for the entire era of George W. Bush’s presidency. Chao, who is married to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, was the only one of Bush’s original cabinet appointees to survive until the end. To celebrate Chao’s departure, about 100 members of Local 12 of the American Federation of Government Employees held a good-riddance party at a D.C. restaurant at which they ate cake that said “Ciao to Chao.” The incoming Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis comes from a union family and is considered passionately pro-labor.