Donald Trump and JD Vance’s Project 2025 Agenda Would Threaten the Hardfought Rights Americans will Celebrate this Labor Day Weekend – from Allowing Employers to Pay Less Overtime to Reducing Child Labor Protections, Attacking Unions and Labor Rights, and Selling Out American Workers

In the days leading up to Labor Day, DNC National Press Secretary Emilia Rowland released the following statement:

“Support for unions among the American people is at a historic high, but Donald Trump and JD Vance’s Project 2025 agenda is once again at odds with voters, with a plan to allow employers to reduce overtime pay and undermine workplace protections. The overtime pay provision is one of the least popular provisions of the enormously unpopular Project 2025 playbook. From now until November, we’ll make sure voters know the choice they face in this election is between a future with the leadership of Vice President Harris and Governor Walz, who fight every day for workers, or one where Trump and Vance take us backwards, stripping workers of rights secured by the labor movement and putting profits of over working people.” 

Trump’s Project 2025 agenda is extremely unpopular among hardworking Americans. Out of policies listed in a recent Navigator Poll, allowing employers to stop paying hourly workers overtime was one of the least popular and considered among the most harmful.

Navigator Poll: Among all of the economic/health care policies surveyed, allowing employers to stop paying hourly workers overtime ranked within the top three for most unpopular and harmful to the country.

Navigator Poll: Voters were told to rank Project 2025 policies on whether they thought it would help the country, hurt the country, or would have no impact, including on “Allowing employers to stop paying hourly workers overtime.”

• 84% overall said the policy would hurt the country, including, 93% of Democrats, 87% of independents, 84% of non-MAGA Republicans, and 67% of MAGA Republicans.

Trump’s Project 2025 blueprint, written for him by his extremist allies, threatens to: 

• Lower the overtime threshold and take away overtime pay eligibility from millions of workers (Mandate for Leadership, p. 592)
• Slash child labor protections, allowing children to work in dangerous conditions
• Erode the ability for workers to unionize by kneecapping the National Labor Relations Board and its ability to protect workers’ rights 
• Gut diversity, equity, and inclusion programs focused on promoting access and opportunity, eliminating the collection of EEOC data and threatening to widen workplace inequities
• Make it easier to classify workers as ‘contractors’, undermining their ability to unionize and receive basic protections

Trump’s Project 2025 agenda would erode overtime pay and unions, allowing big businesses to exploit workers across the country and prevent them from receiving the benefits they deserve. 

The Guardian: “Project 2025 would shrink many workers’ paychecks by calling for a law that limits when they receive overtime pay – to only when they work more than 80 hours over a two-week period, instead of the current system of working more than 40 hours in one week. That means if an employee works 55 hours one week and 25 the next, that worker won’t qualify for overtime pay, despite working 55 hours one week.

“In another proposal that would slice labor costs, Project 2025 says workers who qualify for overtime pay should be able to choose to receive compensatory time rather than time-and-a-half overtime pay. The project says this idea aims to give workers more time with their families, but many worker advocates say it is a ploy to enable employers to twist workers’ arms so that they take comp time instead of time-and-a-half pay.”

Democracy Forward: “In 2024, the Biden administration issued a policy that will make over four million workers newly eligible to qualify for overtime pay. The U.S. Department of Labor did this by raising the “overtime threshold,” which is the salary ceiling under which salaried workers still qualify automatically for overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours in a week, even though those workers are not paid hourly. […] 

“Project 2025 doesn’t want to raise this threshold. Instead, Project 2025 proposes lowering the threshold and taking away overtime eligibility for millions of workers. This would leave at least four million working people in industries that pay annually but still at lower wages stuck working long hours without overtime pay — everything from hospitality to manufacturing, administrative roles, and more.”

Center for American Progress: “However, these gains are under threat from The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025—a playbook with strategies for eroding checks and balances across the government that offers instructions for gutting the NLRB’s enforcement capacity. This would threaten workers’ ability to come together in unions to bargain for better wages and working conditions. 

[…]

“The NLRB also changed a standard from 2019 that allowed many workers to be classified as independent contractors—who are unable to unionize—rather than as regular employees. The antiworker Project 2025 advises undoing this change, which would harm workers’ ability to come together in unions.”

Forbes: “The Project 2025 playbook calls for a complete gutting of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the workplace, stating the need for a reversal of the ‘DEI Revolution in Labor Policy,’ and insisting that the next conservative Administration ‘eliminate every one of these wrongful and burdensome ideological projects.’

“Project 2025 also proposes an amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the legislation that protects against discrimination based on a set of protected classes that includes race, color, religion, sex, and national origin, suggesting that the collecting of EEO-1 data like race, should be prohibited.” 

Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, p. 82: “Congress should also consider whether public-sector unions are appropriate in the first place. The bipartisan consensus up until the middle of the 20th century held that these unions were not compatible with constitutional government. After more than half a century of experience with public-sector union frustrations of good government management, it is hard to avoid reaching the same conclusion.”

The Nation: “Donald Trump Is Not a Friend to American Workers”

“This is a Republican Party fueled by union-busting billionaires who are convinced that hiring expensive law firms will run out the clock on workers who organize, and elected leaders like Trump who want to ensure that law enforcement and the judiciary will be on their side.”

Labor protections would be bulldozed by Project 2025, enabling children to work in hazardous conditions. 

Center for American Progress: “Despite strong evidence that dangerous child labor can harm young workers, the far-right authoritarian playbook known as Project 2025 proposes eliminating protections against hazardous work for children. Specifically, Project 2025 calls on the U.S. Department of Labor to ‘amend its hazard-order regulations to permit teenage workers access to work in regulated jobs with proper training and parental consent.’ In plain English, revising these ‘hazard-order regulations’ means letting teens work in hazardous jobs.”

Former Trump administration officials were masterminds behind Project 2025, including former acting Labor Secretary Patrick Pizzella.

CNN: “In addition to Vought, two other former Trump Cabinet secretaries wrote chapters for ‘Mandate for Leadership’: Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller. Three more former department heads – National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe, acting Transportation Secretary Steven Bradbury and acting Labor Secretary Patrick Pizzella – are listed as contributors.”

The Trump administration hurt American workers every chance they got.

New Yorker: “Trump’s Labor Secretary Is a Wrecking Ball Aimed at Workers”

Politico: “Trump’s acting Labor secretary pick feared by unions”

“But Pizzella’s ascendance to the top of the agency tasked with enforcing labor protections is something unions have long feared. He worked alongside disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff to shield the Northern Mariana Islands from federal labor laws in the 1990s, and generally has favored easing workplace regulations.”

Bloomberg Law: “White House Proposes 11% Cut in Labor Department Spending”

Politico: “President Donald Trump on Friday issued a series of executive orders to weaken the influence of government unions and make it easier for agencies to fire civil servants. … [The orders] also direct federal agencies to renegotiate their labor contracts and cap the amount of paid time that workers can take off to conduct union-related business.” 

In the meantime, VP Harris is garnering support from labor unions – showing that she will have the backs of workers.

USA Today: “Presidents from 6 labor unions throw support behind Kamala Harris at DNC: Watch speech”

AFL-CIO: “AFL-CIO Unanimously Endorses Kamala Harris for President”

“‘Following a vote of its Executive Council, which represents 60 unions and 12.5 million workers, today the AFL-CIO unanimously endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president in the 2024 election. 

“‘From day one, Vice President Kamala Harris has been a true partner in leading the most pro-labor administration in history,’ said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. ‘At every step in her distinguished career in public office, she’s proven herself a principled and tenacious fighter for working people and a visionary leader we can count on.’” 

UAW: “UAW Endorses Kamala Harris for President Ahead of Mass Rally in Detroit”

“‘Our job in this election is to defeat Donald Trump and elect Kamala Harris to build on her proven track record of delivering for the working class,’ said UAW President Shawn Fain. ‘We stand at a crossroads in this country. We can put a billionaire back in office who stands against everything our union stands for, or we can elect Kamala Harris who will stand shoulder to shoulder with us in our war on corporate greed. This campaign is bringing together people from all walks of life, building a movement that can defeat Donald Trump at the ballot box. For our one million active and retired members, the choice is clear: We will elect Kamala Harris to be our next President this November.’” 

SEIU: “SEIU’s Verrett: SEIU is ALL IN for Kamala Harris, a leader who will fight for workers and beat Donald Trump”

“‘The most important thing for working people right now is uniting behind Vice President Harris, the candidate who can beat Donald Trump and finish the job that we started under the Biden-Harris administration. Working people are clear: Vice President Harris is the leader who has their back. SEIU is ALL IN for Kamala Harris,’ [said SEIU International President April Verrett].”