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andy puzder
Puzder Out: Fast Food CEO Drops Nomination to Head Labor Dept.
'This is welcome news for working people'
Feb 15, 2017
Fast-food CEO Andy Puzder, President Donald Trump's pick to head the Labor Department, withdrew his nomination Wednesday afternoon.
"While I won't be serving in the administration, I fully support the President and his highly qualified team," Puzder said in a statement.
An unnamed source close to Puzder said to CBS News ahead of his formal statement that it was unlikely he would sit for his Senate confirmation hearing scheduled for Thursday because "I think he's very tired of the abuse."
RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, welcomed the news on Twitter, writing, "Puzder felt abused? Try working for him!"
His nomination drew fierce opposition, as fast food workers have said the stores he oversees, including Hardee's and Carl's Jr., have engaged in wage theft, discrimination, and sexual harassment. Current and former Labor Department employees also charged in a letter that Puzder has made "derisive public comments about his restaurants' employees and other low-wage workers."
Given his opposition to worker protections, said Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter, "Installing him as Labor Secretary would have had extremely negative consequences for the safety of poultry workers and USDA inspectors who have had to endure intolerable conditions in plants that have been under investigation by OSHA."
Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, added Wednesday: "Americans support raising the minimum wage, expanding eligibility for overtime pay, ensuring safe and healthy workplaces, extending affordable healthcare, protecting workers' retirement savings, safeguarding the right to organize and bargain collectively, and creating good, family-sustaining jobs."
"On all of these issues," Owens said, "Mr. Puzder's record was the exact opposite of where most Americans stand. His loss of support in the Senate mirrors his lack of support in the public."
Indeed, Senate Democrats had called for him to withdraw his name, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) described him as "one of the most anti-worker nominees to any cabinet position, and probably the most anti-worker to the Department of Labor ever."
The development "is welcome news for working people," said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at Economic Policy Institute.
"It was abundantly clear from Mr. Puzder's rhetoric opposing basic labor laws and regulations that protect workers' rights and wages, as well as his record of violating those laws as an employer, that he was ill-suited for the role of chief advocate for working people. Americans need a labor secretary who respects the rule of law, who will work to raise wages and uphold basic labor protections like the minimum wage, paid leave, safe workplaces, and overtime pay. President Trump should nominate someone who will look out for working people, not the profits of big business or the incomes of the one percent," she continued.
Echoing that sentiment, Darin Brooks, a Hardee's worker and a member of Raise Up $15, the Fight for $15 chapter in Durham, N.C., declared that "we can't and won't back down until the Trump Administration gives us a real Labor Secretary who will put working people over corporate profits."
Seven Republican U.S. senators were reportedly withholding support for Puzder. He would have needed 50 votes to pass with a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Mike Pence.
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To find out more about Puzder's views on worker pay, women, and the industry's reliance on undocumented workers, watch this Feb. 13 Democracy Now! interview with Saru Jayaraman of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United:
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#NotOurLaborSec: Fast Food Workers Protest Puzder at Corporate Offices and Chains Nationwide
As protests against Andy Puzder erupt around the country, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tells labor secretary nominee he has a "sneering contempt" for workers
Feb 13, 2017
For the third time since anti-worker fast food CEO Andy Puzder's nomination for Labor Secretary was announced, fast food workers are flooding the streets in protest.
| Tweets about #AndyPuzder OR #NotOurLaborSec OR #fightfor15 |
Days before Puzder's confirmation hearing on Thursday, hundreds of cashiers and cooks are rallying in front of the St. Louis headquarters of Hardee's and the Anaheim, Calif. offices of CKE Restaurants, the conglomerate overseen by Puzder that includes Carl's Jr. and Hardee's restaurants.
Fast food workers aren't the only people objecting to Puzder's nomination. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a blistering letter (pdf) to Puzder Monday in which she charged him with "a sneering contempt for the workers in your stores and a vehement opposition to the laws you will be charged with enforcing."
Indeed, workers say that wage theft, discrimination, and sexual harassment are rampant at Puzder's chains. Those allegations are backed up by publicly available data and have also prompted multiple investigations from the Department of Labor, as media reports have noted.
"Andy Puzder is unfit to be Labor Secretary--period," said Angel Gallegos, a Carl's Jr. cashier from Los Angeles, Calif. "We're stepping up our fight to demand that Puzder withdraw his nomination, and if he won't, then the U.S. Senate should reject him. Working families need a real labor secretary who will fight for ordinary people, not powerful corporations."
One former Carl's Jr. employee spoke out Monday on Democracy Now! about being ignored when she reported sexual harassment while working for Puzder's chain:
Puzder has also recently come under fire for hiring an undocumented immigrant as a housekeeper and avoiding taxes on her labor, as Common Dreams reported.
In fact, the battle over Puzder is heating up, The Hill reports, with Democrats seeing his nomination as on even shakier ground than that of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, whose confirmation required a tie-breaking vote from the vice president for the first time in U.S. history.
" Donald Trump ran on the promise of putting workers first, and what he's done in nominating Puzder, is show he never intended to keep that promise," a Senate Democratic aide commented to The Hill. "For a lot of voters, that's not what they had in mind when they entrusted Trump with their futures."
Watch the rally at Carl's Jr. headquarters here:
And follow the protests nationwide on social media, under the hashtags #NotOurLaborSec and #Fightfor15.
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Puzder Opponents Demand Trump Drop 'Most Anti-Worker Labor Nominee Ever'
Widespread protests planned for Monday ahead of fast food mogul's confirmation hearings
Feb 09, 2017
Labor unions and workers' rights advocates are pressuring President Donald Trump to drop his nominee for Labor Secretary, Andy Puzder, over the fast-food CEO's recent admission that he had hired an undocumented immigrant as a housekeeper.
The AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor union, penned a letter (pdf) to Trump--signed by 128 progressive organizations, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Jobs With Justice, and the NAACP--calling on him to ditch Puzder and pick "a suitable nominee who shows proper respect for working people and our nation's employment laws."
Puzder on Monday admitted that he had also failed to pay taxes on his housekeeper while she was in his employ, although he claimed he did not know of her immigration status at the time. He said he later fired her and has since paid back what he owed--but opponents say that's reason enough to drop him.
Indeed, they say, Puzder only repaid his taxes when his nomination was imminent.
"Mr. Puzder is an experienced attorney and a CEO of a major fast-food chain, so he cannot plausibly claim ignorance of his legal obligations as an employer," the letter reads. "We already have ample cause to doubt Mr. Puzder's fitness for the job as Secretary of Labor, and this latest news confirms our view that he should not be confirmed."
"If he cannot be trusted to follow even one of the most basic laws of employment in his own home, there is no way we can expect him to enforce the crucial laws the Department of Labor oversees on behalf of working people," it states.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) likewise called for Trump to withdraw Puzder's nomination, calling him "one of the most anti-worker nominees to any cabinet position, and probably the most anti-worker to the Department of Labor ever."
Watch below:
The letter comes just before large-scale protests against Puzder's nomination are scheduled to launch nationwide. The actions, organized by the workers' rights collective Fight for $15, will take place Monday, days before his confirmation hearing, which was rescheduled for the fifth time this week and is now set to take place February 16.
Puzder is the CEO of CKE Restaurants, which operates Hardee's and Carl's Jr., among other chains. Workers from several of Puzder's restaurants in January filed 33 complaints with state and federal agencies alleging wage theft, sexual harassment, and retaliation against organizing. His record continues to be a major rallying point for opponents.
"Andy Puzder is unfit to be Labor Secretary--period," said Angel Gallegos, a Carl's Jr. cashier from Los Angeles, California. "We're stepping up our fight to demand that Puzder withdraw his nomination, and if he won't, then the U.S. Senate should reject him. Working families need a real Labor Secretary who will fight for ordinary people, not powerful corporations."
Doreatha Hines, a Hardee's cashier from Orlando, Florida, said, "By picking Puzder, Donald Trump has shown that instead of taking on the rigged economy, he wants to rig it up even more."
"If Trump is going to be a president for the fast-food corporations instead of for the fast-food workers he is going to be on the wrong side of history," Hines said. "And one thing is for sure, whether Puzder's nomination is confirmed, denied or withdrawn: we won't back down for one minute in our demands for $15 an hour and union rights for all working Americans."
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