As the CEO of the corporation that operates Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, President-elect Donald Trump’s labor secretary pick Andy Puzder has frequently criticized efforts to raise the minimum wage, claiming that higher wages are inadequate for entry-level employees and overly burdensome to businesses like his fast food empire.
That aligns with Trump’s position.
But Puzder’s devotion to cheap labor extends to being an outspoken proponent of offering legal status to undocumented workers and pushing for immigration reform — something that is discordant with Trump’s obsession with blocking and deporting undocumented immigrants.
“Our values indicate we should be the party of immigration reform,” Puzder said on a conference call of GOP donors in favor of immigration reform earlier in the year. Many undocumented immigrants “live in fear of being deported, losing what they’ve built and being separated from their families,” he said.
His less noble and more opportunistic reasoning was apparent during an event at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute in June of 2013 — as Congress was engaged in debate about immigration reform — where Puzder offered his candid view on the value of an immigrant workforce.
“Our Hardee’s restaurant operators in the Midwest and Southeast often use the labor force in California as an example of what they would like their labor force to be,” he explained. “They’re very hardworking, dedicated, creative people that really appreciate the fact they have a job. Whereas in other parts of the country you often get people that are saying, ‘I can’t believe I have to work this job.’ With the immigrant population you always have the ‘Thank God I have this job’ kind of attitude. So you end up with a real different feeling.”
Puzder’s implication was that the immigrant workers were more satisfied because they had no choice but to work such low-skilled, low-wage jobs.
“Now that’s a gross generalization,” he said, catching himself. “There are many, many people of all races and nationalities who appreciate the fact they have jobs, so I’m generalizing and maybe that’s a bad thing to do, but I think its probably accurate.”
Moderator Walter Shapiro of Yahoo News asked Puzder what would happen to his company’s ability to recruit a workforce if the unemployment rate dropped and immigration reform failed.
“It would be certainly more difficult if we go back to those days where we’re getting 120, 130 percent turnover,” Puzder said. “Your ability to hire the level of employee that you want when you’re in a business where you require low-skilled workers — where it’s really entry level positions — where it’s how people get into the workforce and kind of obtain the entrepreneurial skills they need to go forward, as places, other businesses are attracting those employees, obviously we’d have a more difficult time. If however we were able to hire people who are currently here illegally, if there were a way to change their status so that they are here legally that would be a big benefit I think to us and to everybody else that has to hire workers in that category. I think that it’d be a real boost to the economy.”
Top photo: Trump and Puzder meeting at the Trump International Golf Club on Nov. 19.
This is a bit concerning. I have read an article that discusses on how Trump can implement mass deportation. It was something about the Korematsu vs. United States during President Roosevelt. I have read it here. http://www.charleskurmay.com/could-donald-trump-really-become-the-president
Re: “But Puzder’s devotion to cheap labor extends to being an outspoken proponent of offering legal status to undocumented workers and pushing for immigration reform..”
How does being a proponent of immigration reform make him devoted to cheap labor? Legalizing the immigrants means they’d get the same wages as everybody else. If he were devoted to cheap labor, he’d want to keep the status quo.
really?
we will have to wait and see.
btw – this is a cant lose situation.
either DT & co screw this up royally and socialism wins in 2018 or he gets it right.
gotta love it.
Does the bleeding-heart left ever consider that, at least on the immigration question, they’re firmly in league with this kind of scum?
No, the left wants those people to come here and make good money at the rate citizens. You scum want super low wages and want to empower scumbags like him. Right wingers are the scourge of the world. Every fucking right wing party is always in the pocket of either foreign nations or their elite. You are the traitors of society.
Problematic the Labor Secretary prefers illegal immigration and automation to fill jobs…
US going for a nightmare? Clitons little helpers (George Soros and co) seem to prepare for it:
“#DisruptJ20 is supported by the work of the DC Welcoming Committee, a collective of experienced local activists and out-of-work gravediggers acting with national support. We’re building the framework needed for mass protests to shut down the inauguration of Donald Trump and planning widespread direct actions to make that happen. We’re also providing services like housing, food, and even legal assistance to anyone who wants to join us.”
Passing 19th December and passing 20th of January will decide!
Tell you what ,,,
You give me and mine a full belly , a shack at night to sleep , $10 to spend , a guarantee of citizenship after a year of honest work and I got no problems .
I know a lot of citizens will complain about losing jobs . But what kinda jobs will they be losing . Certainly not running up and down the lettuce fields . Certainly not washing the dishes and cleaning the toilets . And certainly not
slaughtering and butchering America’s meat .
You guarantee citizenship after one year , with the shack , and food and maybe just $5 a day and we will come .
But we ain’t gonna put up with that shit you did to the SIOUX NATION !!
I doubt when he say’s legal he is thinking of citizenship, probably more “Honorary Citizen Status, which will be revoked when they get ‘uppity’, with deportation. He probably envisions them being quartered in secure barracks so they can’t escape to wider America, making them live off his ‘fast-food junk’ so their time is limited. A revolving door of indentured servants. He will probably even charge them for the ‘honor’, as a lucrative sideline. c.f. The Saudi model.
Obama and his Dems knowingly giggled while inner city residents were passed over for Mexican skilled labor in the building trades over the past eight years.
Democrats know only one thing: try to scavenge social justice warrior poet scientist wannabe socialists and cluelessly try to make them an identity voting block.
So much for the “no name calling policy”… but on behalf of us social justice warrior poet scientist wannabe socialists… some of us have joined the Dem-Exit… so we wont be easily scavenged again… and we have moved on from Occupying Wall Street to Occupying the Media… need to build and support alternatives. We need to OCCUPY THE MEDIA! https://youtu.be/d2xnms84N3c
You’d have to get vocabularies first. “Racist and sexist” doesn’t cut it for today’s effective writers. It’s not like sleeping in a park.
Bernie Sanders owes me $575 . I ain’t occupying nothing till I get my money back .
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Well, La, De , Da !
The medium is the message. Again and again we leave it to some corporation to control the medium of communication and then we are surprised when they become like Facebook, probably because by then they’re owned by Facebook. We could hope for an apparently strong personality like Greenwald to confuse their patterns and hold them back a little while, but this never lasts forever.
The next step is to start being “consistent” and “reasonable”. How can you censor spam and not censor “Truthers”, how can you censor attacks on Muslims due to their religion but sanction attacks on Americans due to their nationality, etc., etc. We don’t have to ask where this bus stops, because we know where all the others stop already.
It’s the progressive left who wants to flood America with job stealers.
_”All You Americans Are Fired”_
“MOULTRIE, Georgia — “All you black American people, fuck you all…just go to the office and pick up your check,” the supervisor at Hamilton Growers told workers during a mass layoff in June 2009.
“The following season, according to a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, about 80 workers, many of them black, were simply told: “All you Americans are fired.”
“Year after year, Hamilton Growers, which has supplied squash, cucumbers, and other produce to Wal-Mart and the Green Giant brand, hired scores of Americans, only to cast off many of them within weeks, according to the U.S. government. And time after time, the grower filled the jobs with foreign guest workers instead.
“Although Hamilton Growers eventually agreed to pay half a million dollars to settle the suit, company officials said the allegations are baseless. Mass firings never happened, they said, nor did anyone use racially inflammatory language. But workers tell a different story.
““We want to go to work and work all day,” said Derrick Green, 32, a father of six who said he was fired by Hamilton Growers in 2012 after only three weeks picking squash. “But they don’t want that.””
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicagarrison/all-you-americans-are-fired
It took Nixon to open China.
Only Trump can push through amnesty, and after declaring victory at the border, he just might do it.
Only if he ever will manage to become president:
“Concurrently, an engineered and coordinated protest movement against Trump has been ongoing since November 8. In fact it started on the evening of November 8 prior to the announcement of the election results. The organizers of this movement are acting on behalf of powerful elite interests. People are misled: the protests are not been led on behalf of the genuine concerns of Americans who oppose Trump’s right wing racist agenda.
The protests have all the appearances of a “color revolution” style op in support of Hillary’s candidacy. The media also provides a biased coverage of the engineered protest movement. The organizers and recruiters are serving the interests of powerful corporate lobby groups including the defence contractors which have placed their bets on Hillary’s foreign policy agenda.”
Sure?
“Concurrently, an engineered and coordinated protest movement against Trump has been ongoing since November 8. In fact it started on the evening of November 8 prior to the announcement of the election results. The organizers of this movement are acting on behalf of powerful elite interests. People are misled: the protests are not been led on behalf of the genuine concerns of Americans who oppose Trump’s right wing racist agenda.
The protests have all the appearances of a “color revolution” style op in support of Hillary’s candidacy. The media also provides a biased coverage of the engineered protest movement. The organizers and recruiters are serving the interests of powerful corporate lobby groups including the defence contractors which have placed their bets on Hillary’s foreign policy agenda.”
People who employ undocumented workers want the minimum wage to go up, since it gives them a cost advantage over the competition.
People who employ low skilled Americans want the minimum wage kept low and a path to citizenship for undocumented worlds, because that reduces their cost disadvantage against the competition.
So Mr. Pudzer’s position is entirely consistent with his own self interest, and therefore an honest one. I think Mr. Trump is making a good decision by hiring some honest people to help promote diversity in his cabinet.
Every politician loves money, power and will do anything to keep their job. That being said, these politicians also know that “immigration reform” is a annual political football to merely score points. If Trump got his wish and deported every Hispanic immigrant, Thousands of businesses nationwide would shut down overnight. Many of Trump’s favorite restaurants would close.
They’ll never do it. And they shouldn’t.
They’ll never do it. And they shouldn’t. BS!
That is exactly what Trump supporters voted for. Shut them down, we can cook our own burgers.
Well, you have to hand it to him for being candid. Most employers love to hire illegal immigrants because not only do they not have to pay minimum wage, there are no payroll taxes, no unemployment taxes, no sick leave, medical insurance, vacation, retirement. . . What’s not to like? Oh, I guess they could ask that people work for nothing – which is another part of Puzder’s position, incidentally. Not only is he against the minimum wage, he opposes paid overtime. If that is not legalized slavery, I don’t know what is.
The irony in all this is that the Trump administration is going to stab their own constituency in the back from day one. People who are struggling to survive working on minimum wage jobs will see no relief. Perhaps they will blame Hillary, or better yet the progressives for that.
It would have been interesting had some employers been arrested for using illegal workers. Had that happened, we would have seen the business community clamoring for immigration reform instead of opposing it. There is a tendency to equate “employers” to mom and pop small farms, but most of the illegals are working for big ag, for the very folks who are forcing mom and pop off their little farm.
“stab their own constituency in the back”
Trumps constituents, are those that got him elected.
Hiring Illegals is an anti-American! Those constituents, are not pleased.
I lived in Tucson Arizona where non-Hispanics do fast food jobs but the nearest Carl’s Jr hires only Hispanics in my area which is not a high Latino area and about 5 years many of the workers could not speak english very well. Its improved, but this shows the Donald is somewhat a hypercritical. If you are against using them in the labor force why not picked another Republican to be labor sec.
My understanding of the immigration laws which are currently on the books, employers who employ illegal immigrants are subject to fines and even arrest. Of course these laws have not been enforced.
Am I mistaken?
Well done another corporate dirt bag completely out of touch with average Americans.
Andy Puzder is the problem! If there were not illegals to take the jobs that used to go to high schoolers, fast food would be forced to raise wages depending on the market.
In 1970 (before the influx of illegals) there was a waiting list of people wanting a 65c/hr McDonalds job. Let the free market reign. In NYC that might be $22/hr or in podunk MS $7.80.
The real criminals are those that hire illegals! Trump has effed up here.
Well, well, well… at least one Intercept writer has come to see the wood instead of the trees. Anyone who uses that which an aspiring presidential candidate promises as a mean of predicting their in-office behavior should have their head examined. Presidential candidates say that which they believe will get them elected – thus the road to political success is lined falsehoods. The unfettered flow of immigrant labor is essential to sustaining a level of US worker insecurity necessary to discouraging collective labor actions. After all of Obama’s broken promises, one would think that liberal progressives would have learned their lesson.
Seasonal workers have been welcomed into the country for decades to work in many states. The problem is that they do not return home at the end of the “season”.
There has to be a way to logically remedy this situation.
Just in the past few days an illegal immigrant who had been deported EIGHT times killed two women in Kentucky in a vehicular manslaughter case.
There HAS to be a way to make our borders non-porous.
Building a wall/fence makes sense. Deporting all illegals who are
criminals also makes sense. Doing “extreme vetting” with those who wish to enter our country from countries where there are hotbeds of terrorism also makes sense.
One would be hard pressed to talk to many Americans who would disagree with these issues.
Which is why almost 5,000 counties went for Trump and only about 400 went for Clinton.
A look at the electoral map as of November 8th shows a sea of red.
Yet Nancy Pelosi has declared that the American people are not seeking a new direction.
Democrats ignore the desires of average Americans at their own peril.
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with you that our current policy of immigration is deeply flawed. And yes, the flow of immigrants into this country can only be adequately regulated at US borders. Since the democratic party enjoys a disproportionate political benefit from current US immigrant po;icies, they have no will to properly regulate the flow.
That aside however, the larger picture is what concerns me the most. Those on the progressive left who purportedly stand in opposition to the neoliberal drive toward global economic integration are the very ones who are most enamored of forced migration from the very countries that are currently being targeted for violent assimilation by its architects. It is only when one stops to examine the neoliberal aim of creating a highly Mobile, global pool of migrant hourly laborers, that one can begin to understand how the concurrent emphasis on multiculturalism by self-proclaimed anti-globalist progressives is blatantly contradictory and deeply dubious. A sustained glut of cheap labor is antithetical to the purported aims of restoring a proper balance between business owners and domestic labor. When the average CEO is making 400 times that of the average hourly worker in their employ then it is essential that their potential access to a standing pool of union busting immigrant labor be severely curtailed. Likewise, there ought to be a major shift in the way that US corporations are allowed to shift production to foreign markets with the intention of lowering their dependence on domestic labor. Worker’s wages should remain proportionate to their level of productivity.