Employees of CKE Restaurants suffered serious labor violations and indifference from management while the company was in the hands of CEO Andrew Puzder, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Labor.
Roberto Ramirez, for instance, spent 18 years working at Carl’s Jr., one of the fast food restaurants owned by CKE Restaurants. Ramirez described how over time, he was saddled with so many responsibilities that he had to work half an hour off the clock every day just to keep up. This overtime was never compensated.
Later, Ramirez’s manager stole one of his paychecks. And when the manager discovered Ramirez had complained about it to the company, he cut Ramirez’s hours. Unable to support himself on the limited hours, Ramirez had to quit.
Ramirez’s experience was not an isolated incident. A recent report from the Restaurant Opportunities Center, a nonprofit committed to improving wages and working conditions for food service workers, found that:
“Under Puzder’s leadership, CKE Restaurants has established a record of multiple lawsuits for discriminating against workers and failing to pay overtime, and has been accused of firing workers for protesting against poverty wages. Workers at CKE restaurants spoke of extensive wage and hour violations and excessive rates of sexual harassment.”
The same report found that:
“Sixty-six percent of women at CKE Restaurants reported experiencing unwanted sexual behaviors at work, compared to 40% of women in the fast food industry overall, according to a national survey.”
This higher-than-average rate of sexual harassment may be linked to the racy ad campaign Puzder supported as head of CKE. Ads for Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s – both of which are owned by CKE – have regularly taken the “sex sells” approach to its raunchy maximum, featuring scantily clad women eating in a sensual manner. One woman worker at Hardee’s in Tennessee was asked why she didn’t dress like the women in the commercials.
Nearly two dozen Democratic Senators asked to include CKE employees in the official hearing for Puzder. They were concerned about the fact that at Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr:
“Department of Labor investigations have turned up violations of basic protections of workers’ rights in more than half of inspections.”
But Republicans refused the request. Instead, Ramirez and other former CKE workers visited Capitol Hill on Jan. 10 to testify before a smaller panel of Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Catherine Masto (Nev.), and Debbie Stabenow (Mich.).
As Labor Secretary, Puzder would be expected to uphold labor law and enforce worker protections. But his record suggests that he would be unable or unwilling to do so.
Check out Tuesday’s Senate testimony in the video below:
Featured image via YouTube video
