Maine’s Gov. Paul LePage has ordered removal of a 36-foot mural in the Department of Labor depicting the state’s labor history. Apparently that public agency’s sole purpose is no longer to protect the rights of working Americans, but to ensure the continuing enrichment of international corporations.

The mural depicts the brave (and often bloody) struggles of Maine’s workers in achieving living wages, establishing a 5-day work-week, and eliminating child labor.

LePage “felt the mural . . . was not in keeping with the department’s pro-business goals.” I understand his position. As globalization is instituted, America is now under the direction of the unelected World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Bank for International Settlements. Working only to increase global trade, national governments must now conform to certain “conditionalities” if they want to play the game.

One of those conditionalities is to have a “flexible work force,” i.e., economically desperate people, with no unions, no collective bargaining, and no memory of anything better. Globalization suffers no opposition.

Administration spokesman Dan Demeritt said, “It’s a very small thing. I just want to emphasize that we were merely looking to achieve a little aesthetic balance. It’s very minor.” If Mr LePage wants to “achieve a little aesthetic balance,” he will keep the mural and add a new one depicting wealthy corporate executives, their lobbyists and politicians dividing their enormous bags of greenbacks, with their personal Lear jets, mansions and yachts in the background.

That is how meaningful “aesthetic balance” would be achieved.

Susan Fagin, Wabash, Ind.