A letter calling on committee senators to reject Labor secretary-designate Andrew Puzder

This past Friday, Daily Kos joined other progressive organizations calling on senators who will be questioning Andrew Puzder to cast their committee votes against him for secretary of Labor. Here is our official letter of opposition:

US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions
428 Senate Dirksen Office Building
Washington, DC 20510 January 6, 2017

Dear Members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions:

On behalf of Daily Kos, the nation's largest progressive political blog, I am writing to urge committee members to oppose confirmation of Andrew Puzder as secretary of Labor. Like other pending appointees of President-Elect Donald Trump, Mr. Puzder expresses outright opposition to the founding objectives of the very department he has been chosen to lead. He gripes frequently about companies being over-regulated and workers being overprotected. 

As you committee members all know, ever since it became a cabinet-level department 104 years ago, the Department of Labor's mission has been "to foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers, and retirees of the United States; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights." Mr. Puzder, on the other hand, has a history of hostility to workers, much of it documented in his own words. That he has been selected to fill the Labor post clearly shows how quickly President-Elect Trump is willing to forget his campaign promises to improve the economic life of working-class Americans. 

Puzder will certainly not be an advocate for such improvement. Indeed, as CEO of CKE Holdings, the parent company of Hardee's and Carl's Jr. fast-food restaurants, he demonstrated that he has no interest in workers’ well-being. The department he has been chosen to steer has repeatedly brought complaints against his company during the 16 years he has been at its helm. For instance, CKE restaurants and franchises were found in violation of wage and hour laws in 60 percent of DOL investigations of the company since 2009. 

Puzder, who makes nearly 300 times what the average worker earning minimum wage takes home in a year, is vituperative in his opposition to increasing that minimum. He wrote two years ago: "The feds can mandate a higher wage, but some jobs don’t produce enough economic value to bear the increase." Higher minimum wages, he says, means people who would have been hired won't be.