What the Trump Project 2025 Agenda Means for Wages & Worker Rights
Have you heard of Project 2025? Project 2025 is a 920-page blueprint for a second Trump administration created by the virulently anti-labor Heritage Foundation and 140 former Trump administration officials, including six of his cabinet secretaries, to remake government to serve the interests of corporations over the working class.
Project 2025 agenda includes, among other anti-labor policies. initiatives to:
- Ban unions for public service workers (page 82).
- Fire civil service workers and replacing them with Trump anti-union loyalists (page 80).
- Let bosses eliminate unions mid-contract (page 603).
- Let companies stop paying overtime (page 592) and allowing states to opt out of federal overtime and minimum wage laws (page 605).
- Eliminate child labor protections (page 595).
- Urge Congress to pass Sen. JD Vance’s bill to let employers create their own sham company-run unions (page 599).
The Heritage Foundation has been instrumental in creating labor policies for several Republican administrations. It has claimed that President Ronald Reagan, who waged a war on workers in the 1980s, attempted to implement nearly two-thirds the think tank’s 1981 Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration and that President Trump tried to impose two-thirds of its 2015 Mandate during his first term.
Below is the national AFL-CIO’s breakdown of what Project 2025 means for working Americans.
The Right to Organize
Lets Corporations Union-Bust in Secret
The Trump Project 2025 agenda would let big corporations secretly hire union-busting consultants to provide behind-the-scenes help in manipulating and scaring workers who try to organize a union.
Makes It Illegal for Employers to Voluntarily Recognize Unions
The Trump Project 2025 agenda would make it harder for workers to form a union by forcing workplaces to hold secret ballot elections for a union, even when employers recognize that the majority of their employees plainly want one.
Lets Employers Take Away Unions Mid-Contract
The Trump Project 2025 agenda would give union-busting corporations a chance to get rid of a union even while workers are in the middle of a signed union contract.
Lets Employers Retaliate Against Union Organizers
The Trump Project 2025 agenda would make it easier for corporations to discipline or even fire workers for engaging in collective action and organizing.
Lets Employers Create Their Own Sham Company Unions
The Trump Project 2025 agenda would let employers sidestep national labor laws by creating their own phony employee organizations with fake employee committees hand-picked by management.
Workers’ Rights
Lets States Gut National Overtime and Minimum Wage Laws—and Lets States Ban Labor Unions
The Trump Project 2025 agenda would allow states to obtain waivers from federal labor laws that protect workers’ paychecks and the right to join a union, putting Americans’ wages and benefits in a race to the bottom.
Lets Employers Stop Paying Overtime
The Trump Project 2025 agenda would do away with overtime pay guarantees and allow employers to instead give employees time off for their overtime work—the employer controls when—resulting in less pay and no new flexibility in schedules.
Repeals Labor and Wage Protections for Workers on Federal Projects
The Trump Project 2025 agenda would repeal the requirements for federally-funded projects to have project labor agreements (PLAs) and pay the prevailing wage in the region, leading to lower pay and more safety risks for workers.
Restricts Unemployment Insurance
The Trump Project 2025 agenda would make it harder for working families to access unemployment benefits.
Privatizes Unemployment Insurance Programs
The Trump Project 2025 agenda would outsource the administration of unemployment programs to “non-public organizations” (a fancy phrase for private companies), causing government workers to lose their jobs and workers to get poor services.
Cuts Assistance to Workers Whose Jobs Were Sent Overseas
The Trump Project 2025 agenda will not fund training and employment services for workers whose jobs are sent overseas from international trade.
Health and Safety
Creates Loopholes That Allow Businesses to Put Worker Safety at Risk
The Trump Project 2025 agenda will let small businesses violate the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA’s) worker safety laws without punishment, no matter what deaths or injuries were caused by their negligence or recklessness.
Eliminates Child Labor Protections
The Trump Project 2025 agenda would eliminate the child labor rules that protect teenagers from working in mines, meatpacking plants and other dangerous workplaces.
Eliminates Reproductive Freedom Nationwide
The Trump Project 2025 agenda will expand upon the Dobbs decision to rob workers of the freedom to make their own health care decisions and make it more difficult to receive health care, including reproductive care.
Increases Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Prices
The Trump Project 2025 agenda would stop the government from negotiating Medicare Part D drug prices, making those prescriptions more expensive.
Public Sector Workers
Ends Public Sector Unions
The Trump Project 2025 agenda would ban all public employee unions.
Fires Civil Service Workers and Replaces Them with Trump Anti-Union Loyalists
Trump will remove civil service protections from federal workers, allowing him to fire civil service workers and staff the government with unqualified loyalists.
Cuts Retirement Benefits for Federal Employees
The Trump Project 2025 agenda will cut retirement benefits for federal workers.
Eliminates the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program
The Trump Project 2025 agenda would eliminate the program that allows teachers, firefighters, social workers and other public service workers to have their student loan debt forgiven after 10 years of public service and 120 qualifying payments on their Direct Loans.