When I lived in Long Beach, I loved catching my breakfast at Carl’s Jr. (I always wondered where the heck Senior was… Oh, yes, the drive-in restaurant that had folded long ago.) It served fresh eggs, decent pastry, and great coffee. And, on occasion, I picked up a fish sandwich for lunch, which was pretty tasty.

In the Charlottesville area, I habituated Hardee’s. OK. Not really in Charlottesville, since those stores were not up to snuff. (My daughters refused to use their bathrooms!) But, the one in Gordonsville was pretty good. And, when Hardee’s took over Roy Rogers (Marriott was dumping its food business), those units were pretty good, too.

Then, a few years later, Carl’s Jr took over Hardee’s. But, to be honest, I never really visited the stores by that era. But, that acquisition was a swallow too big for the firm- and it allowed Andrew Puzder to take control of the firm from its namesake, Carl Karcher.

The CKE Restaurant system (it used to be Carl Karcher Enterprises) is controlled by a private equity investor group.  By the way, the first private enterprise firm, Apollo Global Management, tried to offer the firm up to the public with an IPO [initial public offering]- which flew like a lead balloon.  Now, CKE  is part of a another private equity firm, the Roark Capital Group. (If that name sounds familiar, it means you’ve read “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand.)

The CEO, Andrew Puzder plans to head up the US Labor Department. Like Andrew Puzder cares about labor. (CNN has reported that at least on one occasion Puzder stated Hardees ‘hir[ed] the best of the worst…the bottom of the pool”.)

Part of the reason Puzder has not yet been confirmed as Labor Secretary is that he had refused to sell his interest in the CKE enterprise. Like he could put his stock holdings in a blind trust. No, Mr. Puzder, you can’t move a privately held firm to a blind trust- especially when it is only one firm and not a portfolio of stocks.  Not even you can expect to fool America that you won’t know what your holdings are doing- or how you can steer business its way.

But, let’s examine Mr. Puzder’s capabilities as Labor Secretary.  Hmm…. One of the first things Roark did when it took over from Apollo  was kill the matching contributions to the employee retirement accounts. Because it could. CKE also sold a slew of company-owned stores to raise money (for the private equity firm, not to fund any operations).

One of my favorite things Puzder says is his claim to be qualified to be Labor Secretary because he has 75000 US Employees. Oh, wait. That’s only until the firm gets cited for having 1200 illegal immigrants working there. Because then he avers that this is the franchisee’s problem. (Yup, you guessed, most of the 75000 employees are paid by franchisees. As CKE sucks up 4% of the gross revenue from each store- totalling some $ 915 million or so, of which about $ 50 million reaches the bottom line.)

But, the company-owned CKE stores have had plenty of EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) problems- the charges involve racial discrimination and sexual harassment. At least they were constant until 2010.

Plus, there is the settlement by some $ 20 million in penalties for the  failure to pay overtime (Puzder’s own admission to the fault in 2014). Of course, he blames that situation on the government- and that his employees didn’t really want to be hourly.  No, these folks “wanted” to remain as managers (where they could be “cheated” of overtime). And, this is not the franchisee’s problem; these were company owned stores with the problem.

Now, we get to the crux of my problems with Mr. Kuzder. According to the computations of National Employment Law Project, Carl’s-Hardee’s is just like WalMart and McDonalds. Those profits they want you to believe they’ve earned? They’ve been stolen from you and me.

Because we (the US citizens)  have to subsidize the CKE employees’ meager wages and benefits (with Medicaid, AFDC [Aid For Dependent Children], food stamps (officially SNAP, the supplemental nutrition assistance program), et. al) by some $ 250 million in assistance.

That $ 50 million in profit looks mighty paltry right now…

 

BREAKING NEWS- 3 PM, 15 February 2017- Puzder is removing himself from consideration!!!!!!

 

If he were the only “deficiency” in the proposed cabinet, then it could almost be acceptable.  But, Betsy DeVos knows virtually nothing about the programs administered by the Education Department.  Not to mention, (ex-Governor) Rick Perry couldn’t even remember the name of the agency he will now head (plus, he had no clue that it administers the US nuclear program).  Or Wilbur Ross who has no plans to divest himself of his oil, shipping, and real estate ventures, as is the norm [and might be the law if the governing party decided to hold itself to the same standards to which it holds its enemies [that word is chosen on purpose; it is exactly how they view their political opponents] if (G-d help us) he becomes Commerce Secretary.  We could go on- Health and Human Services headed by a member of AAPS (a “fringe”physician group) , that has been opposed to Medicare, Social Security, and vaccination; the proposed head of the EPA that allowed fracking that yielded earthquakes all over his state, yet routinely sued the EPA – even when the case was in Virginia (only), because he opposes the concept of environmental safety based on benefits accrued– only industrial costs matter; people’s health and deaths be damned.  But, if I continued this complaint,  I’d have to create yet another post.  Not going to happen.