Labor Secretary nominee Andy Puzder, CEO of the restaurant chain that owns Hardee's and Carl Jr.'s, is a minimum wage hike critic, but his views on immigration could ruffle feathers on the right, too.
An editorial in this morning's Wall Street Journal (Mr. Puzder contributes frequently to those pages) applauds the choice:
[Puzder ]is also the rare executive who promotes free markets rather than merely his narrow business interests. Mr. Puzder has expounded in these pages on the unintended consequences of ObamaCare’s mandates and a $15 minimum wage. He’s also detailed how the Obama Administration has contributed to the shrinking labor force and large number of underemployed workers.
Unions and their liberal friends are deploring Mr. Puzder as “anti-worker,” but there’s a difference between unions and workers. Over the last two decades the share of private workers who belong to a union has shrunk by a third to 6.7%. Many have realized that unions are often more concerned with their own pecuniary and political interests than the long-term interests of workers.
To compensate for their shrinking membership, labor groups have sought to use government as a cudgel against business. The Obama National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Labor Department have rewritten large chunks of labor law, and the test for Mr. Trump isn’t whether he can give unions more power. The challenge is to foster strong enough economic growth to raise wages more than during the last eight years, and among other things that requires more labor flexibility.
The editorial board of the Journal says that Puzder should ask Trump to rescind President Obama's nine executive orders on paid sick leave for employees of federal contractors and the use of agreements that freeze out non-union companies from construction government construction projects.
The editorial also urges Mr. Puzder to end current Labor Secretary Perez's "guidance" that redefines joint employer (and harms franchises, something about which Puzder knows a great deal). What the editorial calls the Obama's "lawless rule-makings," including extending threshold for overtime, are being challenged in court. Puzder could take action on these.
Some conservative immigration hawks are also going to have problems with Puzder, among them Mark Krikorian, who describes the nominee as a voice for Gang of eight-style immigraion reforms.
Puzder would be a threat to his department bureaucracy, as would the nominee who really has the left having fits, EPA nominee Scott Pruitt, who is now Oklahoma attorney general. Pruitt has repeatedly sued the EPA, one of the most runaway agencies in the federal government. Taking note of the left's outrage over the Pruitt appointment, Kimberly Strassel says it is nothing short of an attempt at a revival of federalism.
Hysterical environmentalists are calling him a polluter and "fossil-fuel fanatic," but Strassel writes:
Mr. Pruitt is not any of those things. Here’s what he in fact is, and the real reason the left is frustrated: He’s a constitutional scholar, a federalist (and a lawyer). And for those reasons he is a sublime choice to knock down the biggest conceit of the Obama era—arrogant, overweening (and illegal) Washington rule.
Since arrogant, overweening (and illegal) Washington is not going to take any threat to its power sitting down, we're in for some confirmation fireworks.