Believe it or not, advocates of a living wage and workers’ rights in general are not fans of President-Elect Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Labor pick.
They’re vehemently protesting Andy Puzder, CEO of the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. fast food chains, who is up for confirmation this week. In Tampa, some of the chain’s low-paid employees plan to demonstrate against Trump’s pick in the hope of drawing attention to what they see as his all-around demeaning treatment of employees (and women—not sure if you’ve seen commercials for the chains that he’s condoned).
At noon Thursday in Tampa, Hardee’s workers will join activists with the Fight for $15 movement at a franchise located at 4116 W. Hillsborough Ave. to “denounce” Puzder, under whose watch they say the company, CKE Restaurants, “stole workers’ wages, violated overtime laws and forced employees onto public assistance.”
Brittany Wheeler, who works five shifts a week at the Tampa restaurant, said even though she’s working two jobs, it’s impossible to support her family despite having worked with the company for the better part of a decade.
“I’m a single mother of three kids and barely live paycheck to paycheck,” she said. “My lights are always on the cutoff extension…I really don’t have enough money for food.”
Wheeler said she’s about to graduate with an associate’s degree and is concerned that she won’t be able to find work in her field right away. Yet her current Hardee’s job also lacks opportunities for advancement despite her motivation to advance.
“They won’t promote you,” she said. “They talk about promoting you…and then some BS excuse pops up…I do everything I’m supposed to do but I never become manager.”
She’s not afraid to protest the CEO of the restaurant’s parent company, she said, given how important making a living wage is to her.
As opponents of a minimum wage hike, activists argue, corporate executives like Puzder impose a high cost to taxpayers, given that those who have to subsist on, say, $8.10 an hour (Florida’s minimum wage) typically have trouble getting by without any government assistance, be it food stamps, public housing or public transit. And that has a huge toll on taxpayers.
He’s also been an opponent of overtime pay, paid sick leave and the Affordable Care Act.
So, basically, he seems to think that fair compensation for workers who are responsible for delivering to consumers the product that (ugh, somehow) makes him rich is too much of a burden on his bottom line.
Get this: his company also opted to pay workers with prepaid debit cards, which ended up being a violation of labor laws since withdrawing cash often requires an ATM fee.
More info on Tuesday’s event here.
This article appears in Jan 5-12, 2017.
