President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Andy Puzder, the CEO of a fast food restaurant chain company and an outspoken opponent of raising the federal minimum wage, as his labor secretary, transition sources said.
Puzder, who is the head of CKE Restaurants Inc., the parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, served as a Trump surrogate during the presidential campaign and advised the mogul on economic issues.
A formal announcement by Trump’s transition team will occur “soon,” Reuters reported.
The appointment of Puzder, whose industry has been the primary target of the “Fight for $15” movement, bodes poorly for national efforts to increase the federal minimum wage.
He has repeatedly argued against raising the federal minimum wage higher than $9 an hour and has also been a frequent and fierce critic of Obamacare, saying that the President’s signature health care law has hurt businesses.
Pro-worker groups and lawmakers immediately criticized the pick, including New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who called the Puzder’s selection a “cruel and baffling decision” by Trump.
“President-elect Trump’s reported choice to lead the Labor Department has done everything in his power to undermine the rights of American workers, from driving down wages to opposing overtime pay,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “Even worse, Andrew Puzder presided over a fast-food chain that repeatedly stole workers’ hard earned wages.”
The “Fight for $15” group itself blasted the appointment as “sad,” saying that Puzder “makes more in a day as we do in a year.”
The group sent out statements from its members, including one from a Rogelio Hernandez, a cook at a Carl’s Jr. franchise, who said, “putting one of the worst fast-food CEOs in charge of national labor policy sends a signal to workers that the Trump years are going to be about low pay, wage theft, sexual harassment and racial discrimination.”
Wade Henderson, the CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Coalition, called Puzder “an opponent of jobs that make America great and put food on the table.”
“He opposes fair wages, he opposes overtime pay, he opposes sick days, and he opposes health care benefits — all of which have a great impact on working class families, communities of color and women,” he said.
Debra Ness, the president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, called Puzder “an appalling choice” who “betrays America’s workers.”
The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, which translates to just $15,080 a year for someone working 40 hours a week — an amount below the federal poverty threshold for a family of two or more.
Like top Trump adviser Stephen Bannon, Puzder has been accused of domestic violence. Ex-wife Lisa Henning said he “attacked me, choked me, threw me to the floor (and) hit me in the head pushed his knees into my chest, twisted my arm and dragged me on the floor, threw me against a wall, tried to stop my call to 911 and kicked me in the lower back,” according to a 1989 Riverfront Times article.
He denied any wrongdoing, and Henning recanted the allegations Thursday night.
In a statement sent from a Puzder spokesman to the Riverfront Times, Henning wrote “I will most definitely confirm to anyone who may ask that in no way was there abuse.”
She said she regrets filing the allegations, and that she and Puzder now have a “respectful relationship.”
Puzder has also faced blowback over ads run by Carl’s Jr., featuring scantily clad women munching on burgers.
The executive has defended the ads, telling Entrepreneur magazine last year, “I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis. I think it’s very American.”
With Christopher Brennan, News Wire Services
