You might expect Donald Trump to appoint an EPA chief who hates the environment, a secretary of education who hates public schools, and a dingo to watch over your baby. But Trump’s choice for secretary of labor goes beyond just hating unions and hating the minimum wage. He hates people.
"I want to try it," CEO Andy Puzder told Business Insider of his automated restaurant plans. "We could have a restaurant that's focused on all-natural products and is much like an Eatsa, where you order on a kiosk, you pay with a credit or debit card, your order pops up, and you never see a person."
Job losses due to automation already far exceed those lost to trade, and they're about to get worse with millions of retail jobs and transportation jobs likely to be lost in the next few years. But Puzder’s response to calls to raise the minimum wage isn’t to provide more incentives or training to improve his work force, it’s a threat to make his greasy, drippy-cheese burgers with an all-robot staff.
"This is the problem with Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton, and progressives who push very hard to raise the minimum wage," says Puzder. "Does it really help if Sally makes $3 more an hour if Suzie has no job?"
Puzder could take a slight cut to his $4.5 million base salary—which works out to about 300 times that of his workers. But no, the man just loves him some robots.
[Machines are] always polite, they 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.
Did I mention he loves him some robots?
"You're going to go into a fast-food restaurant and order on an iPad or tablet instead of talking to a person because we don't have to pay benefits for any of those things."
Just the man we need in the corner of American workers. Though you can certainly see what he has in common with Trump.
"I like our ads. I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis. I think it's very American," Puzder said in a 2015 interview with Entrepreneur magazine.