President-elect Donald Trump chose a fast-food company CEO with a record of labor violations and sexist ads to be the country’s leading voice for working people. Join us in saying no to Andrew Puzder, the #AntiLaborSecretary.
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Andrew Puzder to run the Department of Labor. As the CEO of fast-food giant CKE Restaurants—the parent company of the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. chains—Puzder has a record of taking money out of the pockets of the people who work for him, to line his own.
By choosing Puzder, Trump made it clear that his campaign promises to stand up for working people and to “drain the swamp” were more lies designed to get him elected. Puzder is part of Trump’s corporate cabinet of billionaire buddies and powerful insiders who broke the rules and rigged the system to get richer at the expense of the rest of us. If he is confirmed, it means that a CEO with ties to other corporate executives will be in charge of defending working people. His career success comes at the expense of the same people Trump vowed to help.
With a history of undermining and opposing worker protections, Puzder is an especially dangerous choice for Labor Secretary. During his tenure, his CKE restaurants and franchises were investigated numerous times by the U.S. Department of Labor—the very agency President-elect Trump wants Puzder to lead. The Labor Department found CKE restaurants guilty of stealing employee wages in 60 percent of their investigations. Puzder even complained about having to provide rest and meal breaks.
Puzder grew his fortune by underpaying the people who worked for him and opposing ways to help Americans climb the economic ladder and close the wage gap. Puzder took home 294 times what the average person earning the minimum wage makes every year, yet he’s railed against meaningful increases to the minimum wage. While Americans broadly support rules boosting the minimum wage, expanding overtime protections, and providing people with the right to earn paid sick leave time, Puzder remains vehemently opposed to policies allowing working people earning a fair return on their work.
Puzder is grossly out of touch with Americans who struggle to make ends meet. The millionaire even said “some jobs don’t produce enough economic value” to justify his stance against a higher minimum wage. Puzder also ranted that robots would make better employees than human beings because they are ”always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case.”
The Labor Secretary should be a champion of working people, not an adversary. As we joined together to create jobs that sustain families, revitalize our communities, and build an economy that works for everyone, Puzder opposed us at every turn. Together, let’s say no to Andrew Puzder, the #AntiLaborSecretary.