Andrew Puzder, right, withdrew his nomination to head the Labor Department after Republicans expressed concern over his failure to pay taxes promptly on a former housekeeper who wasn't authorized to work in the U.S.

NEW YORK — Fast-food’s hopes for representation in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet have been at least temporarily dashed, a major setback for an industry that has felt under siege in recent years.

Andrew Puzder, CEO of the company that owns Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, on Wednesday withdrew his nomination to head the Labor Department, which is charged with protecting workers’ rights and welfare. A significant factor was a lack of support from some Senate Republicans, in part over taxes he only recently paid on a former housekeeper not authorized to work in the United States.

Labor groups and advocates criticized Puzder’s comments about replacing workers with robots and his opposition to significant wage hikes, but industry executives and fast-food franchisees saw him as a figure who would champion their interests in the government.

“I don’t necessarily know that we’ve been heard,” said Cicely Simpson, executive vice president of the National Restaurant Association, a trade group that had strongly backed Puzder’s nomination.

Puzder had said that businesses were suffering under President Barack Obama’s administration, citing the health care overhaul that required employers to offer insurance coverage for full-time workers. Another change Puzder criticized would have expanded the number of employees eligible for overtime pay — a change that has since been blocked by a federal judge.

Since late 2012, the Fight for $15 campaign has also targeted companies like McDonald’s and Wendy’s, galvanized support for minimum wage increases around the country and pushed for changes that were seen as potentially paving the way for fast-food workers to unionize. Although the wage increases many restaurant operators have dealt with were enacted at the state or local level, Obama’s Labor Secretary’s Tom Perez had been a high-profile supporter of Fight for $15.

Trump’s tapping of Puzder in December to head the Labor Department seemed to mark a shift, and the industry enthusiastically supported him. That included pushing back against a coalition of labor groups including the Fight for $15, which sprang into action to oppose Puzder’s nomination with protests at Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s stores and a social media campaign.

Kendall Fells, national organizing director for the Fight for $15, said the social media push was successful enough that Puzder’s Twitter account blocked multiple coalition supporters.