The Republican attacks against Lina Khan (Chair of the FTC / Federal Trade Commission) keep coming 21APR23

THE gop / greed over people party, following the lead of House speaker kevin mccarthy rff CA, have begun a propaganda campaign to destroy Lina Khan's ability to manage the FTC. They are attacking her for supporting workers rights, for her antitrust policies, her antimonopoly policies, for her attempts to rein in the greed of the corporate-financial cabal and hold them accountable for upholding their share of the American social contact. Democrats, Independents and non-maga Republicans need to stand up for Lina Khan and support her as Chair of the FTC, her policies and programs. Please add your name to this petition to Congress from Demand Progress  and e mail your representative and senators and demand they support and protect Lina Khan.

I e mailed Rep Jennifer Wexton D VA 10th and Sen Mark Warner D VA and Sen Tim Kaine D VA this

Let Lina Khan take on big corporations

Petition to Congress:

I urge you to allow the Federal Trade Commission to execute its mandate, including strong enforcement of antitrust laws to protect consumers and banning noncompetes to protect workers.

Jim Jordan, the rest of the GOP, and big corporate interests are throwing everything they can at Lina Khan to stop her efforts to empower workers. Corporations and Republicans don’t want Khan, the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), to block corporate mega-mergers and get rid of noncompetes. They don’t want the FTC to raise wages and enforce antitrust law.

Republicans are even spuriously accusing Khan of “foreign collusion.”1 We know MAGA Republicans will spread disinformation to serve their extreme agenda.

When Republicans want to stop the Biden administration they go on the all-out attack. When they don’t like a policy proposal, they spread lies and launch nasty disinformation campaigns. We can’t let the GOP and big corporations win this fight over workers and consumer protections.

Lina Khan is taking on the biggest corporations like Amazon, Facebook, and Google with her antitrust and pro-labor work.2 The FTC estimates that wages could collectively go up by $300 billion if noncompetes are successfully banned3 — $300 billion big corporations don’t want to pay.

We can’t let Congress and GOP extremism stand in her way.

Jim Jordan, the rest of the GOP, and big corporate interests are throwing everything they can at Lina Khan to stop her efforts to empower workers. Corporations and Republicans don’t want Khan, the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), to block corporate mega-mergers and get rid of noncompetes. They don’t want the FTC to raise wages and enforce antitrust law.

Republicans are even spuriously accusing Khan of “foreign collusion.”¹ We know MAGA Republicans will spread disinformation to serve their extreme agenda.

Sign the petition: Congress must enable the FTC to enforce antitrust law and protect workers to the fullest extent possible.

ADD YOUR NAME

When Republicans want to stop the Biden administration they go on the all-out attack. When they don’t like a policy proposal, they spread lies and launch nasty disinformation campaigns. We can’t let the GOP and big corporations win this fight over workers and consumer protections.

Lina Khan is taking on the biggest corporations like Amazon, Facebook, and Google with her antitrust and pro-labor work.² The FTC estimates that wages could collectively go up by $300 billion if noncompetes are successfully banned³ — $300 billion big corporations don’t want to pay.

Add your name: Congress must protect the FTC so it can do its work for consumers and workers.

Thanks for taking action,

Tihi and the team at Demand Progress

DONATE

Sources:

1. Wall Street Journal, “The FTC Is Working With the EU to Hamstring U.S. Companies,” April 19, 2023.
2. NPR, “Lina Khan is taking swings at Big Tech as FTC chair, and changing how it does business,” March 9, 2023.
3. Huffington Post, “Congressional Democrats Urge FTC To Ban Noncompete Agreements 'Without Delay,'” April 19, 2023.

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PAID FOR BY DEMAND PROGRESS (DemandProgress.org) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Contributions are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. Join our online community on Facebook or Twitter.

Supreme Court Decision Delivers Blow To Workers' Rights 21MAI18

BLAME for this decision lies squarely on the cowardly Democratic members of the senate who voted to approve fascist pig neil gorsuch to the US Supreme Court rather than filibuster his nomination until his nomination was withdrawn or sen mitch mcconnell r KY invoked the nuclear option. Expect the court to issue more rulings favoring the rich and corporate America. MIDTERM ELECTIONS ARE ON 6 NOV 18. VOTE! From NPR.....

Supreme Court Decision Delivers Blow To Workers' Rights

In a case involving the rights of tens of millions of private-sector employees, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, delivered a major blow to workers, ruling for the first time that workers may not band together to challenge violations of federal labor laws.

Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said that the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act trumps the National Labor Relations Act and that employees who sign employment agreements to arbitrate claims must do so on an individual basis — and may not band together to enforce claims of wage and hour violations.

LAW

A 'Yellow Dog Contract' And Other Jabs During Supreme Court Opening Arguments

"The policy may be debatable but the law is clear: Congress has instructed that arbitration agreements like those before us must be enforced as written," Gorsuch writes. "While Congress is of course always free to amend this judgment, we see nothing suggesting it did so in the NLRA — much less that it manifested a clear intention to displace the Arbitration Act. Because we can easily read Congress's statutes to work in harmony, that is where our duty lies."

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the four dissenters, called the majority opinion "egregiously wrong." She said the 1925 arbitration law came well before federal labor laws and should not cover these arm-twisted, "take-it-or-leave it" provisions that employers are now insisting on.

The inevitable result, she warned, is that there will be huge underenforcement of federal and state statutes designed to advance the well-being of workers.

"[T]he edict that employees with wage and hours claims may seek relief only one-by-one does not come from Congress," Ginsburg writes. "It is the result of take-it-or-leave-it labor contracts harking back to the type called 'yellow dog,' and of the readiness of this Court to enforce those unbargained-for agreements. The FAA demands no such suppression of the right of workers to take concerted action for their 'mutual aid or protection.'"

She urged Congress to correct the court's elevation of the arbitration act over workers' rights.

LAW

The War Over Confirming Federal Judges Is Heating Up — Again

Notably, Ginsburg's dissent is five pages longer than the majority's opinion. And Gorsuch spends time in his opinion to respond point by point to the minority's arguments.

The ruling came in three cases — potentially involving tens of thousands of nonunion employees — brought against Ernst & Young LLP, Epic Systems Corp. and Murphy Oil USA Inc.

Each required its individual employees, as a condition of employment, to waive their rights to join a class-action suit. In all three cases, employees tried to sue together, maintaining that the amounts they could obtain in individual lawsuits were dwarfed by the legal fees they would have to pay as individuals to bring their cases under the private arbitration procedures required by the company.

LAW

Supreme Court Upholds Individual Rights In 2 Key Criminal Justice Cases

The employees contended that their right to collective action is guaranteed by the National Labor Relations Act. The employers countered that they are entitled to ban collective legal action under the Federal Arbitration Act, which was enacted in 1925 to reverse the judicial hostility to arbitration at the time.

A study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute shows that 56 percent of nonunion private-sector employees are currently subject to mandatory individual arbitration procedures under the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act, which allows employers to bar collective legal actions by employees.

The court's decision means that tens of millions of private nonunion employees will be barred from suing collectively over the terms of their employment.

Trump Labor Nominee Andrew Puzder Withdraws, First Cabinet Pick To Fall & Trump Picks R. Alexander Acosta As New Labor Nominee 15&16FEB17

THE drumpf/trump-pence administration has a new nominee to head the US Labor Dept now that andrew puzder was forced to withdraw, not because the White House had a problem with his lack of morals and ethics but but because there were even some republicans in the senate who did. The votes just weren't there for puzder to be confirmed. It is doubtful r alexander acosta is any better, just consider who picked him! From +NPR .....

Trump Labor Nominee Andrew Puzder Withdraws, First Cabinet Pick To Fall

February 15, 2017  3:25 PM ET

President-elect Donald Trump with Labor Secretary-designate Andrew Puzder at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., on Nov. 19, 2016.

Carolyn Kaster/AP

Updated at 4:15 p.m. ET

Fast-food executive Andrew Puzder withdrew his nomination to head the Labor Department on Wednesday as his support on Capitol Hill faltered. Facing criticism from both sides of the aisle, Puzder became the first Trump Cabinet pick whose nomination failed.

 Follow

Andy Puzder 

✔@AndyPuzder

I am withdrawing my nomination for Secretary of Labor. I'm honored to have been considered and am grateful to all who have supported me.

4:07 PM - 15 Feb 2017

 
•  1,3501,350 Retweets
 
•  2,3732,373 likes

Puzder put out a statement on Wednesday:

"After careful consideration and discussions with my family, I am withdrawing my nomination for Secretary of Labor. I am honored to have been considered by President Donald Trump to lead the Department of Labor and put America's workers and businesses back on a path to sustainable prosperity. I want to thank President Trump for his nomination. I also thank my family and my many supporters—employees, businesses, friends and people who have voiced their praise and hopeful optimism for the policies and new thinking I would have brought to America as Secretary of Labor. While I won't be serving in the administration, I fully support the President and his highly qualified team."

Ahead of his scheduled confirmation hearing on Thursday, which had been delayed several times, it became less clear Puzder had support from his own party, facing pressure to withdraw. Several Republican senators, including Maine's Susan Collins, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, Georgia's Johnny Isakson and South Carolina's Tim Scott, signaled trouble by saying they were undecided on Puzder.

POLITICS

CHART: The Status Of Trump Administration's Key Members

POLITICS

Despite Recent Additions, Trump Cabinet Still Emptier Than Predecessors'

In a statement responding to Puzder's withdrawal, Scott said, "As revelations regarding paying employees in cash, illegal immigration, and comments regarding some of the American workforce came to light, I developed serious concerns regarding his nomination." Scott said he informed Senate GOP leadership about his reluctance to support Puzder.

Puzder has faced a range of criticisms, from his record running the Hardee's and Carl's Jr.'s fast-food chains to old allegations — since retracted — of domestic abuse made by his ex-wife. More recently, Puzder disclosed he employed a housekeeper who was not in the country legally. Labor unions, which had planned to protest his nomination outside the Senate offices where the hearing was to be held, have argued a Puzder-led Labor Department would undermine their efforts to raise the federal minimum wage, expand the eligibility for overtime pay and enforce wage and hour violations, among other things.

Puzder, a corporate attorney by training, was first a lawyer for CKE Restaurants, which operates Hardee's, Carl's Jr., Green Burrito and Red Burrito restaurants. He helped founder Carl Karcher settle an insider trading case with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Then, after the chain fell into financial trouble following its acquisition of Hardee's in the late 1990s, Puzder helped turn the company around and in 2000 was named CEO.

As CEO, and later as a Trump campaign adviser, Puzder has been outspoken about his views on labor policy, contributing to newspaper opinion pages and on television, discussing issues such as immigration. During the Republican presidential primaries, Puzder advocated creating a path to legal status for unauthorized workers living in the U.S. He endorsed a more moderate "comprehensive immigration reform," similar to what candidates Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio were proposing at the time.

POLITICS

The Richest Administration In History Just Got Richer

THE SALT

Trump's Labor Pick Faces Slew Of Legal Complaints From Fast-Food Workers

That endorsement won him critics from the right, who want the Trump administration to make good on promises to get tougher on illegal immigration and crack down to deport those in the country illegally.

In an opinion piece titled "No to Puzder" in the National Review published Feb. 15, the conservative magazine wrote: "The case for his confirmation has diminished to the point of disappearing."

The most vocal critics, however, have pointed to his industry's record at the very department he would lead.

For the fast-food industry overall, during the 2016 federal fiscal year, the agency found violations in 86 percent of the 1,300 cases it investigated for wage theft, or for unpaid overtime. CKE Restaurants had one of the lowest incidents of reported cases, faring relatively well in an industry that came in for a lot of criticism under the Obama administration.

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, said Puzder would not have enforced labor laws against his own industry. "How can he possibly go out and defend workers," he said, arguing the agency should be headed by someone with a history of trying to protect the interests of workers.

Trump Picks R. Alexander Acosta As New Labor Nominee

February 16, 201711:50 AM ET

Updated with announcement

R. Alexander Acosta, seen in 2007, is President Trump's new pick for labor secretary.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

President Trump has named R. Alexander Acosta as his replacement for labor secretary nominee. Trump's earlier pick, fast-food executive Andrew Puzder, withdrew his nomination on Wednesday afternoon after losing support on both sides of the aisle.

Acosta has been dean of the law school at Florida International University since 2009. He has been a member of the National Labor Relations Board and was U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Prior to that, he was an assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division during the George W. Bush administration.

His tenure there was not without controversy. Acosta filed a brief defending an Ohio law that allowed people to challenge the legitimacy of a voter at a polling place, even though the Justice Department was not involved in the case, as the Los Angeles Times reported in 2004.

While Acosta was U.S. attorney, his office was reprimanded by a federal judge after it was revealed that prosecutors there had illegally recorded conversations with the attorney of a doctor accused of illegally prescribing painkillers. Acosta said he had instructed his employees to not do that again.

If confirmed, Acosta will be the first Hispanic member of the president's Cabinet.

Puzder, CEO of CKE Restaurants — including Hardee's and Carl's Jr., had been scheduled for a confirmation hearing on Thursday after multiple delays. He faced criticism for his management of the company and for more personal issues, including a since-retracted domestic abuse allegation from his wife and hiring a housekeeper who came to the U.S. illegally.

5 reasons the Senate must reject Andrew Puzder as Labor secretary 22JAN17

The United States Secretary of Labor is a member of the Cabinet of the United States, and as the head of the U.S. Department of Labor, exercises control over the department, and enforces and suggests laws involving unions, the workplace, and all other issues involving any form of business-person controversies.

Trump labor pick in 2011 on his fast-food workers: We hire 'the best of the worst' -andrew puzder

pres drumpf's/trump's sec of labor puzder is committed to increasing the wealth of the 1% at the expense of the poor, retired, and the working and middle classes. He doesn't give a damn about the American people, he is driven by greed, corporate greed, and the nation will suffer for it. Unfortunately he will be confirmed by the US Senate because most of the Democrats in the Senate are also in bed with the 1% and do not have the morality and courage to block his nomination. Still, as a citizen it is our responsibilty to let our Senators know our opinion, and you can contact your Senator on puzder's nomination here. puzder would fit in well with putin's government of oligarchs, and will not stand in the way of the military-industrial complex from using, abusing and neglecting their employees to increase the wealth and power of the 1%.  puzder will be a leader in changing America from a democratic Republic to a Third World theocratic plutocracy. Check out the article from +The Hill below....

5 reasons the Senate must reject Andrew Puzder as Labor secretary

BY JOHN A. LOGAN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 01/22/17 11:00 AM EST

Next month, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will hold a confirmation hearing on Andrew Puzder, CEO of the fast food corporation that owns Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, who is President Trump's nominee for secretary of Labor. If the Republican-controlled committee supports Puzder, he can then be confirmed by a simple majority vote of the full Senate.

Over the past century, many political and intellectual giants, both Democrat and Republican, have held this key Cabinet post: Frances Perkins, who was an integral member of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal Administration; Arthur Goldberg, President Kennedy's secretary of Labor who would later serve on the U.S. Supreme Court; Willard Wurtz, secretary of Labor in the Lyndon Johnson administration and a central actor in the War on Poverty; George Shultz, secretary of Labor in the Nixon administration and President Reagan's secretary of State; and John Dunlop and William Usery, who both served in the Ford administration and who were among the nation's greatest labor arbitrators.

Puzder's name does not belong anywhere near this distinguished list. Previous Labor secretaries have lead major corporations; that's not the issue here. It would take far too long to list all the reasons why Puzder is uniquely unqualified for the position, but below are five major reasons the Senate must reject him.

1. Puzder's corporation, CKE Restaurants, is a persistent labor law violator.

The fast-food sector is rife with unlawful behavior and CKE is one of the worst offenders. According to a major study by the Department of Labor, 60 percent of CKE restaurants had at least one Fair Labor Standards Act violation. The fourth-worst offender in an industry rife with bad actors, CKE has faced several class-action lawsuits on wage theft.

Puzder simply cannot be trusted to enforce a law his own Carl's Jr. and Hardee's restaurants habitually violate.

2. By all accounts, Puzder cares little for his own employees.

Earlier this month, CKE announced layoffs when it relocated its corporate headquarters from California and St. Louis to Nashville, Tennessee. According to one former management employee, keeping employees informed was a low priority. As a former CKE director told Bloomberg BNA, "his choice was always: 'they don’t need to know; they just need to know where to show up to work.'"

Puzder's former director of franchise development stated that Puzder did not prioritize employees' welfare because his primary responsibility was "to the shareholders and to the franchisees to be able to deliver profits." "Shareholders and profits first, workers last" is not a good motto for the new secretary of Labor.

3. Puzder apparently believes that workers in his industry should be replaced by machines because machines "always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there's never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex or race discrimination case," as he told Business Insider in March 2016.

Andrew Puzder, job destroyer and champion of automation: So much for the Trump administration's supposed focus on job creation.

4. All indications suggest that Puzder would benefit powerful corporations at the expense of American workers.

He opposes an overtime rule that would raise wages for millions of American workers. Employees at Puzder's restaurants report being pressured to work "off the clock" as they approach 40 hours in order to avoid overtime payments. Puzder, who pulls in a multimillion dollar salary, opposes increasing the federal minimum wage and his restaurants pay poverty-level wages.

We do not need a Labor secretary from the 0.01 percent who believes that $7.25 per hour is an acceptable living wage.

5. Puzder opposes holding fast-food and other corporations responsible for the unlawful behavior of their franchisees.

Since Puzder was nominated, workers from Carl's Jr. and Hardee's have come forward in droves with stories of mistreatment, including sexual harassment, and many say management failed to act on their complaints. Puzder doesn't know or doesn't care about the appalling record of his CKE restaurants.

He should be held accountable for this habitual lawbreaking, and his failure of leadership should disqualify him from consideration for secretary of Labor.

None of these arguments concerning violations of workers' rights will cut ice with the Republicans on the Senate Labor Committee. A multimillionaire who has donated $1.3 million to GOP politicians — including Trump and Labor Committee member Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) — Puzder could be confirmed with full Republican support.

But that support is simply a reflection of the GOP's extreme anti-worker agenda, not an endorsement of Puzder's suitability for this important position.

In his actions and statements, Puzder is the polar opposite of the distinguished statesmen and women who have served as past secretaries of Labor. He is perhaps the least-qualified Labor secretary in the history of congressional hearings on the position. He mistreats his own employees, opposes a living wage, prioritizes corporate profits and denies responsibility for labor law violations.

Andrew Puzder is uniquely unqualified to serve as secretary of Labor and the Senate must reject his confirmation.

John A. Logan is professor and director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University.

This piece was updated on Monday, Jan. 23, 2017 at 6:43 a.m.

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The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.