title:  Trump’s Labor Pick Belonged To Group That FORCES Workers To Listen To Right-Wing Lies At Work
text: Andrew Puzder, Trump s nominee for Secretary of Labor, hasn t had his confirmation hearing yet, but he ll probably end up getting confirmed despite opposition from pro-worker Democrats and labor groups. That s unfortunate, because he was once a part of a group with a ridiculous name: The Job Creators Network. This group is anything but pro-job creation, as they push all sorts of right-wing, anti-worker propaganda that s been shown to harm the economy and jobs.According to a report in The Nation, JCN pushes employers to pepper their employees with anti-government, pro-big business ideology, and while they don t specifically have their employers hold guns to their workers  heads to force them to pay attention to this stuff, they encourage employers to send out  government policy  emails, stuff paycheck envelopes with flyers, run their videos during team-building meetings and other company exercises, and post notices and infographics around the workplace, where they can easily see it and read it.In other words, this group that Puzder belonged to until just recently works to ensure employees don t have much of a choice but to pay attention to at least some of their stuff.And their stuff is insidious. For instance, their website, informationstation.org, has a film that ominously depicts cartoon workers disappearing into thin air and getting replaced with robots. It talks about how minimum wage hikes in California and New York could kill 700,000 jobs and 500,000 jobs, respectively. It also says that 16.8 million jobs could disappear if we raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.What it doesn t say is that the 16.8 million number is the uppermost number in a range derived by the right-wing American Action Forum, and that the low end is 3.3 million.It certainly doesn t mention anything whatsoever about higher minimum wages having a positive effect on jobs, like what the CEO of Wetzel s Pretzels noticed in California after their minimum wage went up.Watch the spin below:JCN also paints minimum wage earners as less-than deserving of a living wage. An infographic neatly informs workers that over half of minimum wage earners are ages 16-24, that 64 percent of them are part-time workers, that 65.2 percent have never been married, and 27.9 percent have not graduated high school. These statistics are true, but they re using them in very deceptive ways to push an anti-minimum wage message.And that message is quite clear: Minimum wage earners don t deserve a living wage, and since all raising it will do is destroy your job, you should vote for people who don t want to raise the minimum wage.They paint the new overtime rule as a job killer, too. And on and on it goes   all of this is stuff that employees at many companies are forced to watch or read. According to The Nation s report, this propaganda effort has actually effected dramatic changes in the way workers see these issues, which, in turn, affects how they vote.This bullshit is why we have such terrible income inequality. JCN is selling the very myths that have created such a problem with income inequality and stagnant wages, and harms the workers they claim they want to protect. If any of this was going to actually work, it would have worked by now. It s had over 30 years to work.And Puzder belonged to this group until at least December, although JCN claims he never belonged. We re about to have a Secretary of Labor who isn t just in favor of these policies, but appears to have supported forcing workers to view propaganda, and outright lies, for the purpose of brainwashing them so the so-called  job creators  can continue to fatten their wallets, and for the purpose of getting them to vote Republican.Featured image by Jason Kempin via Getty Images for Dream Foundation