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Fight for $15' supporters won't like Trump's reported pick for labor secretary
Striking McDonald's restaurant employees lock arms in an intersection before being arrested after walking off the job to demand to demand a $15 per hour wage and union rights during nationwide "Fight for $15 Day of Disruption" protests Nov. 29 in Los Angeles. (David McNew/Getty Images)

Fight for $15' supporters won't like Trump's reported pick for labor secretary

President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly chosen fast-food executive Andrew Puzder to lead the Labor Department — a choice who likely won't support raising the federal minimum wage.

Puzder currently runs CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Hardee's and Carl's Jr. fast-food chains. According to the Washington Post, Puzder has been a staunch opponent of raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, a push now commonly referred to as the "Fight for $15" movement. He believes that raising the minimum wage from the current $7.25 per hour would burden employers and thus force them to cut jobs. According to GrubStreet, Puzder told Fox News' Megyn Kelly in 2013:

It’s very simple: If you increase the cost of something, businesses will use less of it. If you decrease the cost, they will use more of it. So if you increase the cost of full-time employment, there will be less full-time employees. If you decrease the cost of part-time employment, you’ll have more part-time employment.

He has also been an outspoken critic of Obamacare and is opposed to the labor department's newly created overtime rule, which makes more employees eligible for overtime pay. Puzder penned an op-ed for Forbes in May in which he explained his position on the overtime rule:

This new rule will simply add to the extensive regulatory maze the Obama Administration has imposed on employers, forcing many to offset increased labor expense by cutting costs elsewhere. In practice, this means reduced opportunities, bonuses, benefits, perks and promotions.

A federal judge last month halted the overtime, which would have gone into effect Dec. 1 and would have almost doubled the threshold under which salaried workers must be paid overtime, as TheBlaze previously reported.

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