Andy Puzder, President Trump’s pick to run the Labor Department, didn’t really bow out. He was fired.
But even though Trump made the phrase “you’re fired” his motto, he didn’t force Puzder out. We did. Working people sent him the pink slip.
When Trump was inaugurated less than one month ago, he figured he could dictate his policies and ram his appointments through the Republican-run Congress. Being the least popular president elected since polls began recording public sentiments apparently didn’t faze him.
Trump loaded his proposed cabinet with billionaires, cronies and crooks, goading his opponents.
One of the Worst
Of all the unqualified and inappropriate crew of cabinet nominees, Puzder was one of the worst. As the CEO of the parent company of the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. fast-food chains, he has both personal and political beliefs that clash with public values. He opposes raising the minimum wage or requiring that restaurants pay servers the same minimum wage as other workers earn and he routinely violated labor laws at his own restaurants. He behaves in a sexist way and defends the sexist behavior of his subordinates. And yet had he become the next Labor secretary, he would have been required to enforce the labor laws he flouts.
It’s no surprise that low-wage workers and the labor movement found Puzder unacceptable. Ahead of his scheduled Senate hearings, thousands of workers — including people who work at Puzder’s own restaurants — protested the nominee in front of Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. restaurants from coast to coast.
Puzder has also enraged women and advocates over his use of sexualized images of women in Carl’s Jr. ads. In his own words: “We believe in putting hot models in our commercials, because ugly ones don’t sell burgers.”
Saru Jayaraman, Executive Director of Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United, said on Democracy Now!,
You’ve seen these ads of Carl’s Jr. restaurants in which they have nearly naked women holding up burgers in front of their breasts or lying on the floor eating a burger or feeding burgers to each other in naked positions. And then you look at the data from our report and other reports showing that young women, often very young women, 16-, 17-, 18-year-old girls, were harassed, grabbed, assaulted in various ways, as I said, told by customers, “Why aren’t you dressed like the girls in the ads?”
(ROC United is an affiliate of People’s Action.)
In Trouble from the Beginning
Puzder’s nomination was in trouble from the beginning. His hearing was postponed at least four times because the nominee failed to provide required paperwork to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
What eventually forced Trump to demand Puzder’s withdrawal was the growing opposition to Puzder’s nomination among some GOP senators. Those Republicans were angered, not by his sexism and abuse of working people, but his hiring of an undocumented woman to clean his home. Politico reports that some close Trump advisor’s didn’t fully back Puzder’s nomination because he supported moderate immigration reform.
Puzder’s anti-worker behavior should disturb every American. Over the past few years, amid rising inequality, the plight of low-wage workers has become a central issue in economic debates. There’s broad support for increasing the minimum wage nationally to begin to address the stagnation of real wages. In state after state, voters have approved ballot initiatives that boosted the minimum wage within their borders, and in Seattle, Los Angeles and now New York State, voters have embraced a pay floor of at least $15 per hour.
Opposition to Puzder generated an organized barrage of calls to senators and the White House, petitions, protests and more. The repeated delays of his confirmation hearing might have hurt Puzder as well. Senate Republicans tried to rush all the cabinet confirmations because they knew due diligence and scrutiny would expose the questionable records of Trump’s team. As the delay dragged on, more and more revelations, like the damning tape of his ex-wife appearing in disguise on the Oprah Winfrey show describing how Puzder physically abused her, came to light. (She later retracted the charges and said she regretted her Oprah appearance.)
No Accident
It’s no accident that Puzder bowed out just two days after National Security Adviser Gen. Mike T. Flynn’s resignation. The Trump administration’s confidence is shaken. GOP unanimity is broken. Just last week, Trump’s Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, couldn’t be confirmed without Vice-President Mike Pence’s tie-breaking vote when two Republicans voted against it.
Thousands of local protests as part of the #ResistTrumpTuesdsays campaign and in response to the outrageous immigration orders have fueled public rage against the administration and its supporters. Boycotts of Uber, Disney, Tesla and other corporations cooperating with Trump’s economic agenda have also alarmed business leaders.
Plus, the past two weeks have GOP senators feeling the heat as their constituents have showed up at town halls meetings and Senate offices demanding opposition to dismantling Obamacare and Trump’s crooked cabinet.
All of that pressure brought on Puzder’s demise. The people sent him packing.
Within a day of Puzder’s bowing out, Trump named Alexander Acosta, dean of Florida International University College of Law, as his new nominee for Labor secretary. Acosta is sure to also get strong scrutiny from people who work for a living and their advocates.
The people have begun to slow the momentum of the Trump/GOP anti-people agenda. And the resistance to their agenda has only just begun.
This post originally appeared on ourfuture.org on February 16, 2017. Reprinted with Permission.
Libero Della Piana is the Director of Digital Organizing at People’s Action. Follow him on twitter @ldellapiana.
