After being postponed four times, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions has scheduled the nomination hearing for Andrew Puzder, President Donald Trump's choice to be the next Labor secretary, for Feb. 16.
Senate democrats, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, along with ranking member of the HELP committee Sen. Patty Murray, rallied on Capitol Hill Thursday morning along with fast food workers and advocates to call on Puzder to withdraw as Trump's nominee.
— Check out ThinkAdvisor's DOL Fiduciary Compliance coverage.
Fast-food executive Puzder's confirmation hearing had been scheduled to take place on Feb. 7, Feb, 2, Jan. 17 and Jan. 12. The HELP committee had said that it would not "officially notice a confirmation hearing with Mr. Puzder until the committee has received his paperwork from the Office of Government Ethics," according to a statement provided to ThinkAdvisor by an aide to Sen. Lamar Alexander, the committee's chairman.
Schumer said in a Thursday statement that Trump "could not have picked a worse nominee to uphold [Labor's] goals than Andrew Puzder. Everything in his career is antithetical to the goals of the Department of Labor."
Puzder's career mission statement "would be the exact opposite of the mission statement of the Department of Labor. It would fly in the face of what's good for the hundreds of millions of working American women and men. Andrew Puzder's mission statement has been defined by cutting corners and putting profits over people, over his workers."
