Puzder Is Out as Labor Pick, and California Unions Aren’t Mad About It

Less than 24 hours after President Trump's first choice for U.S. secretary of Labor dropped out of the running, Trump introduced Florida attorney and former National Labor Relations Board member Andrew Acosta as his next pick to be the nation's top labor chief.

Acosta, dean of Florida International University’s law school, is the first Latino to be nominated for a cabinet position in the Trump administration.

In 2003, the Harvard-educated Republican was appointed by President George W. Bush to be the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

Some labor groups in California said they are cautiously optimistic about the new choice.

“At the very least we know Mr. Acosta has some experience with labor law. And we’re hoping that he’s able to answer some very tough questions about protecting workers, and the role of the secretary of Labor,” said California Labor Federation spokesman Steve Smith.

“We’re reserving judgment for the time being until those questions are asked and answered. But certainly this is light years away from where we were last week with Puzder.”

Trump's first choice for the cabinet post, Andrew Puzder, had become mired in personal scandals and controversies over treatment of employees working in the fast food chains overseen by Puzder's CKE Restaurants.

Puzder started building his vast fast food empire as chief of Southern California-based Carl’s Jr. The Missouri-born former trial attorney took the company way beyond its humble hotdog cart origins to build CKE Restaurants which now also includes the Hardee’s and Green Burrito chains.

His confirmation hearing had been postponed for months as Puzder apparently struggled to disentangle himself from his financial holdings and deal with mounting opposition from labor groups and even some within the Republican ranks.

As Puzder prepared for this week’s scuttled confirmation hearing, graphic details of alleged spousal abuse from the 1980s resurfaced. And scores of protesters rallied outside Carl’s Jr restaurants from Anaheim to New York opposing his confirmation.

Labor activists are especially aggrieved over Puzder’s opposition to minimum wage hikes and workplace violations racked up by CKE Restaurants.

“His entire record as a business man is about undermining and ignoring those very legal protections that he’d be in position to enforce (as U.S. Labor Secretary) and that makes him uniquely unqualified to be labor secretary,” said Roxana Tynan director of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy upon hearing news of Puzder’s withdrawal.

“We’re really glad that that message got through to at least some of the senators.”

Puzder pulled out of the running when it was clear he may not have enough Republican votes to be confirmed. He is the first major Trump cabinet nominee to withdraw before a confirmation hearing.

In an interview earlier this week former Republican Senator Jim Talent of Missouri seemed confident of confirmation despite the mounting trouble. Talent was helping Puzder, a long-time friend, prepare for what was sure to be a bruising hearing.

“A lot of the people opposing him now are in a year or two going to say; this guy is a lot better than we thought because he’s an honest and caring person and he’s going to enforce the law and do everything he can to create jobs and I think a lot of people in Washington are going to like that,” said Talent.

Puzder relocated to Southern California from St. Louis in the 1990s, hired by Carl’s Jr founder Carl Karcher to help get the franchise back on solid financial footing. The conservative, anti-abortion Catholic was eventually named CEO. He’s credited with expanding its fleet of restaurants and overseeing a controversial ad campaign featuring half-naked girls chowing down on dripping Carl's Jr burgers.

Puzder was also a frequent guest on cable news programs offering conservative analysis and opinion on various issues including opposition to a higher federal minimum wage and President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

But at home in the tony, celebrity studded community of Montecito along the Santa Barbara Coast, Puzder flew under the radar. Several local Republicans contacted for this story were either unaware that Puzder lived in their midst or rarely saw him around town.

Last year, Puzder pulled up stakes and relocated his family to Tennessee. He also closed CKE corporate offices near Santa Barbara. Probably for the best, says Santa Barbara Independent newspaper columnist Nick Welsh. Puzder's cultivated bubble of privacy was probably about to burst wide open.

“The sort of cynical joke about Santa Barbara is; oh it’s Saturday, let’s go to the farmers market, let's have brunch and then we're going to go protest Trump,” laughs Welsh.

“Pudzer would have been a very good target for anti-trump demonstrations; people would have been in front of his house.”

Puzder also clashed with many Republicans over his views on immigration. Earlier this month he acknowledged hiring an undocumented housekeeper to work at his Montecito home. Puzder says he fired the woman after discovering her immigration status, paid back taxes related to her employment and claims he also offered to assist her adjust her legal status. Puzder says she declined.

That and Puzder’s long-running support of immigration reform made him a target for immigration hardliners.

“If 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 illegally that would be a big benefit to us and to everybody else that has to hire workers in that category,” said Puzder during a talk a the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C. four years ago.

The aggressively business friendly, multi-millionaire tied the rising fortunes of low wage workers to the rising tide of business, which he saw as being hamstring by over burdensome regulations and union organizing.

Puzder also plowed hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to various conservative causes and politicians. But he was initially reluctant to endorse candidate Donald Trump, until Mr. Trump had secured the Republican presidential nomination. He then backed that endorsement with campaign contributions topping $250,000.