The Seattle Times • Elizabeth Ford & Dylan Orr

AFTER being delayed four times already, the Senate on Thursday is expected to consider the nomination of Andrew Puzder to lead the Department of Labor. The department’s job is to protect workers by ensuring minimum-wage and overtime payment, safe and healthy workplaces, and maintaining critical workforce statistics. If Puzder is confirmed as Secretary, DOL’s fundamental enforcement role will be in jeopardy.

There is an epidemic of wage theft in the United States. A survey of more than 4,000 low-wage workers conducted by the National Employment Law Project indicated that more than 1 million employees were not paid minimum wage, not paid overtime and not given the breaks that they are entitled to. Among those low-wage workers surveyed:

• 26 percent were paid below minimum wage in the previous week, and fully 60 percent of those workers were underpaid by $1 an hour or more.

• 75 percent were not paid overtime after working more than 40 hours in the previous week.

• Nearly 75 percent were not paid for “off the clock” hours worked beyond their daily shift.

• An overwhelming majority (86 percent) were not provided meal or rest breaks.

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St. Louis Post-Dispatch • Ruth Berson & Patricia Kinsey

When President Donald Trump nominated St. Louis’ Andy Puzder to serve as the secretary of labor, it was a slap in the face to millions of working people in this country. On the Washington University campus, it hit especially hard.

Why? Not only is Puzder the chief executive of the parent company of Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., fast-food restaurant chains long associated with paying people as little as possible and in many instances breaking the law by failing to pay cooks and cashiers for hours they worked, but he is also a graduate of the Washington University School of Law. He currently serves on the law school’s National Council and is a donor to the university.

From our perspective as working people at Washington University — one of us an adjunct faculty member for 19 years and the other a janitor for more than 22 years — we have serious concerns about Puzder’s nomination.

While it may seem unlikely, we have a lot in common with the tens of thousands of underpaid workers in St. Louis and tens of millions of workers nationwide — including the cooks and cashiers at Puzder’s restaurants — all of us struggling to make ends meet and create a better life for our families.

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International Business Times • Dean Kuipers

Torrance Chambers has been calling Andy Puzder for weeks to talk to him about a problem with his paycheck from the Hardee’s restaurant where he works in Birmingham, Alabama. Ordinarily, Chambers wouldn’t bother the CEO of the fast-food chain’s parent company, CKE, Inc., but he claims his shift leader, store manager and several higher-ups told him no one else could help. Chambers said his store issues paychecks only in the form of a prepaid Visa debit card — and it comes with fees. He’d prefer to get a paper check or a direct deposit, the way he has at other jobs.

“In order to get the money out the card, you have to go to the ATM, and the one I have to go to, they charge $3.95 for every transaction I have,” said Chambers. He said he’s been charged different fees for using the card in stores and for paying his bills, and there’s no option to get his full paycheck at any particular bank or store without being charged.

“Including food and gas and everything, in a week, total, I’m out $80 [just on transaction fees]. And I’m only getting paid roughly $250 a week,” he said. These fees mean that Chambers’ real wages are significantly less than the national minimum wage required by law, $7.25 an hour.

Having received no return call from Puzder, Chambers filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor on January 25, 2017, alleging minimum-wage violations related to the cards, as well as other problems at the store.

CKE did not respond to queries related to this article.

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Santa Barbara Independent • Emily A. Gardner

Southern California is known for its sunny weather, beautiful beaches, and a few bustling cities. But soon it will get a dubious distinction – Carpinteria business owner and U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) nominee Andrew Puzder.

To call Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominations controversial would be an understatement. It is no secret that many of Trump’s nominees have connections with corporations whose profit-driven interests are directly at odds with the federal agencies Trump has selected them to lead. In that regard, Trump’s selection of Andrew Puzder to lead Labor is no different from many of his other choices.

However, Puzder’s nomination also represents a major broken promise to working families. After all, Trump made protecting American workers a central theme of his campaign and his plan for his first 100 days in office. Despite this promise, Trump chose Puzder – a man who prefers automated robots to human employees – to be the primary advocate for workers in his administration. Instead of a labor secretary who supports working families, Trump wants to give workers an anti-labor secretary.

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CNN • Sunlen Serfaty

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Kennebec Journal • Ryan Jones

Workers at the shipyard where I work are like most others in Maine. We get up every day, we go to work and we do our best for our co-workers and our employer. We work hard. We just ask that in return we get a fair shake: wages to provide for our family, a safe workplace, rights on the job and a chance to continue to improve our lives. That’s not asking for too much. This is the basic promise of the American dream.

Key to delivering on this promise is a strong Department of Labor. The Department of Labor was created by Congress over 100 years ago, and historically, the secretary of labor has sought to improve the lives of workers, by ensuring that employers deliver fair wages, safe working conditions and ladders of opportunity.

Unfortunately, the current nominee for secretary of labor, Andrew Puzder, doesn’t share this vision. His track record clearly indicates he has no interest in honoring this mission and advancing the lives of workers. Instead, Puzder, as CEO of CKE Restaurants (owner of the Hardees and Carl’s Jr. chains), has proven that he is more interested in squeezing profits out of workers than in honoring their needs for safe work and decent pay.

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