(CNN)Apparently, lightning does strike twice: President-elect Donald Trump once again has named someone to his Cabinet who stands in almost comic opposition to the work they would be tasked with leading -- and to the promises Mr. Trump made to the American people.
This time, Trump has tapped fast-food magnate and conservative commentator Andrew Puzder to head the Department of Labor, the federal agency responsible for ensuring workplace safety, wage and hour standards, unemployment insurance benefits and other core rights
Both in his work for CKE and in his public commentary, Puzder consistently shows that he considers government protections for working people to be nothing more than an intrusive nuisance. He has been outspoken in his opposition to the Obama administration's updated overtime rules, for example, which would help as many as 12.5 million workers making less than $47,500 annually. Puzder suggests that the "stature" and "sense of accomplishment" his restaurant managers and other workers feel make up for long hours with no extra pay -- an extreme view wildly out of step with most Americans, two-thirds of whom support the overtime reform. A powerful business executive, paid more in one day ($17,192) than a minimum-wage worker makes in a year, Puzder also opposes broad raises to the minimum wage, again reflecting how out of step he is with mainstream America. Unsurprisingly, he leans heavily on the myth that raising the minimum wage leads to job loss -- despite rigorous research findings to the contrary.
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Such comments are concerning when you consider that the Labor Department is charged with enforcing discrimination laws for federal contractors, as well as the fact that the labor secretary oversees the Women's Bureau, which was established to represent the needs of working women in the creation and implementation of public policy.
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The record isn't complete, of course, and it's up to the Senate to do its job in examining it closely before voting to confirm Mr. Puzder. But the evidence so far indicates that neither working women nor any of America's workers will be his priority as labor secretary. Rather than upholding the Labor Department's crucial responsibility to protect workers, Puzder's comments and conduct suggest he will be focused, first and foremost, on Americans whose interests match his own.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/09/opinions/labor-secretary-pick-is-acontradiction-owens/index.html
Why Trump's labor secretary is an extreme contradiction
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