On Sunday, Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC) sent a mass email to supporters full of misinformation, designed to generate opposition to President Trump’s Labor Secretary-designate Andy Puzder
January 24, 2017
Fake News: ROC Sends Email Littered With Falsehoods In Attempt To Smear Puzder
On Sunday, Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC) sent a mass email to supporters full of misinformation, designed to generate opposition to President Trump’s Labor Secretary-designate Andy Puzder.
ROC may not like Puzder because he has made it clear that he will fight for workers and jobs instead of Big Labor bosses, but they have no business sending information to their allies that is simply not true.
For instance, the email says that “Puzder opposes the minimum wage.” That is simply false.
Puzder has said he’s “not against a minimum wage higher than today’s federal level,” but cautions that he would not support an increase that would eliminate jobs. To say he “opposes the minimum wage,” is just not true.
In addition, the email attacks Puzder and claims that his company, CKE Restaurants mistreated workers, which is fundamentally untrue as well. While ROC put out a survey making this claim, it’s methodology was deeply flawed and has been criticized in a number of explanatory pieces. On top of that, an alternative survey that was done in a much sounder fashion found that an overwhelming majority of CKE employees think that their restaurants are “a great place to work.”
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Finally, the email painted Puzder as a rigid opponent of abortion and implied that he’d be hostile to women. Again, this is pure misinformation and not an accurate representation of Puzder’s beliefs.
In the 1980s, Puzder took a leadership role in “The Common Ground Network” which sought to bring the pro-life and pro-choice movements together for constructive discussion. Clearly, Puzder has no animosity towards the other side in this debate and instead is committed to working with them for constructive solutions.
Either ROC has a serious problem with fact-checking or they are deliberately misrepresenting Puzder’s record to try and gin up artificial opposition towards his nomination. Like the phony protests against him, these emails are another example of Big Labor putting out incorrect information to try and scuttle a Labor Secretary that will put workers and jobs ahead of union special interests.
photo: Getty Images