18. Department of Labor and Related Agencies

Project 2025 source link: DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND RELATED AGENCIES

WARNING: This is a HUGE chapter – but since the Heritage Foundation’s prime directive is to serve the needs of corporations and oligarchs, this is to be expected. We follow author Jonathon Berry’s “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” of wonky and obsurely-written policies to suppress workers, along with sudden banked turns into Christo-fascism. And truly, we marvel at his chutzpah in linking the protection of the American family with impoverishing and disempowering them.

We’ve added in videos and graphics to try to break this monster up, including ones of the author, but our point-by-point breakdown is admittedly still a slog. There is no shame in just looking through the top summaries from Stop the Coup and labor unions that cover the important points.

Various summaries, useful vocabulary and a couple of videos!

• This is the article Convergence’s Stephanie Luce references: Trump Loyalists Lay Out Plan for Second Term: Gut Worker Protections
• This is the Project 2025 chapter on the Department of Labor: https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHAPTER-18.pdf

Our own page-by-page deep dive – This is where we teach ourselves about labor law, GOP-gibberish and Christian nationalism.

OVERVIEW

Maya Angelou stated “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”

Republicans try to sound nice on paper by using words like “restore,” “work ethic,” and “protecting,” but their anti-worker record speaks for itself.

• (Pg. 581) OVERVIEW – “At the heart of The Conservative Promise is the resolve to reclaim the role of each American worker as the protagonist in his or her own life and to restore the family as the centerpiece of American life. Give workers the support they need for rewarding, well-paying, and self-driven careers, and restore the family-supporting job as the centerpiece of the American economy. The Judeo-Christian tradition, stretching back to Genesis, has always recognized fruitful work as integral to human dignity, as service to God, neighbor, and family.”
  • Translation: It’s every worker for themselves, against huge corporations. Plus, we’re going to inject our favored form of Christianity into everything.
  • Project 2025 purports that government agencies and unions have acted against American workers.  But no one has hurt American workers more than the Republican party.
    • Republicans helped corporations outsource jobs: They provided decades-long support of corporate employers who outsourced (moved out) American jobs from America to China, India, and other foreign countries so they could increase profits by paying less money to foreign workers for the same work and ignoring American workers’ rights and protections at home.
    • Republicans had the opportunity to protect workers. Instead, they did this:
      • They voted AGAINST the American Rescue Plan in 2022 that aimed to protect the pension plans for millions of American workers and retirees;
      • They voted AGAINST the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act in 2021,
      • They voted AGAINST the Protect Older Job Applicants Act in 2021; and many more similar bills.
    • Republicans had the opportunity to regulate labor markets. Instead, they did this:
      • They voted AGAINST the Protecting the Right to Organize Act that aimed to restore fairness to the economy so workers may band together for fair changes in the workplace.
    • Republicans had the opportunity to raise wages. Instead, they did this:
      • They BLOCKED President Biden’s federal minimum wage increase from $7.25 to $15 in 2021.  Jonathon Berry, the author of this section, led the Labor Department’s regulatory office under Trump, and worked to deny guaranteed overtime (the “Obama Overtime Law”) to millions of American workers.
    • Republicans had the opportunity to improve conditions so a job can support a family. Instead they did this:
      • They voted AGAINST against child care, voting against food and cash aid for those who need it most to support their families, and voting against Medicare for All for you and your family.

The GOP are frightened by CRT and DEI

Project 2025 will widen systemic inequities in the workplace. “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. Without collecting demographic data about employees, organizations will not be able to recognize disparities in representation (e.g., hiringand promotion rates). What gets measured gets improved and without adequate data collection, systemic inequities in the workplace will persist.”

What is “disparate impact liability?” “Congress recognized that discriminatory motives could also be easily disguised and that our country’s long history of discrimination made it easy to perpetuate inequality without much thought. For these reasons, civil rights laws incorporate disparate-impact liability, which focuses on consequences, not just motives. Ever since, disparate impact liability has been a vital tool in advancing equality. In 2014, Justice Kennedy remarked on the role of disparate impact in Texas DHCA v. Inclusive Communities: “It permits plaintiffs to counteract unconscious prejudices and disguised animus that escape easy classification as disparate treatment. In this way disparate-impact liability may prevent [discrimination] that might otherwise result from covert and illicit stereotyping.”

Republicans want you to forget what America was like without labor laws and civil rights laws that protect every American worker and their families from discrimination in the workplace and a living wage.  And because of their wannabe dictator Diaper Don’s dog whistles, they are emboldened in their animosity towards the LGBTQ+ community and anyone who dares disagree with them.  Do not allow Republican hypocrites to wrap themselves in the American flag or a perverted idea of the  Judeo-Christian tradition to manipulate Americans into voting against their interests as workers and as Americans.

NEEDED REFORMS

(Pg. 582) “NEEDED REFORMS – Reverse the DEI Revolution in Labor Policy”:

• The GOP believes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a left-wing ploy to discriminate against conservative and religious and force-birther views (this is in every chapter!)
  • On the contrary, DEI has given us the inclusive and diverse society that we enjoy today, where in the last 50 years Americans from underrepresented backgrounds are no longer excluded from the same opportunities in education and careers that used to be reserved only for white men regardless of a white man’s qualifications.  
  • Republicans want to destroy laws that have helped millions of Americans to accomplish the American Dream regardless of their background, such as: white women (who are the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action), Jewish Americans, Black Americans, Latinx Americans, Indigenous Americans, and Asian Americans. 

(Pg. 582) “NEEDED REFORMS – Eliminate Racial Classifications and Critical Race Theory Trainings”.

• (Pg. 582) “Issue an executive order banning, and Congress should pass a law prohibiting the federal government from using taxpayer dollars to fund, all critical race theory training (CRT).”
  • The GOP is seriously frightened that people will learn about systemic racism in America.
• (Pg. 582) “Direct DOJ and EEOC to enforce Title VII – to prohibit racial classifications and quotas, including human-resources classifications and DEI trainings that promote critical race theory.”
  • For the GOP, the less factual data people have about discrimination, the better it is for them to tell whatever story they want.
• (Pg. 583) “Eliminate EEO-1 data collection“: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission collects EEO-1 data on employment statistics based on race/ ethnicity, which data can then be used to support a charge of discrimination under a disparate impact theory. This could lead to racial quotas to remedy alleged race discrimination. Crudely categorizing employees by race or ethnicity fails to recognize the diversity of the American workforce and forces individuals into categories that do not fully reflect their racial and ethnic heritage.
  • The GOP’s go-to move is removing the ability to gather information, so that racist disparate impact liability is harder or impossible to prove.
  • Instead of whining about “crude” methods of categorizing employees, why don’t their resident geniuses figure out how to improve them.
• (Pg. 583)”Eliminate disparate impact liability.“
  • Oh, hell, they’ll just get rid of it altogether. They actually had the chutzpah to say that with increasing interracial marriages, people don’t fit into “crude racial categories” and therefore they can ignore this whole thing, rather than to make more and better categories.
• (Pg. 583) “The President should sign an executive order explicitly forbidding the Office of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCCP) from using disparate impact in its analysis.”
  • OK, but it might still bubble up…
• (Pg. 583) “Eliminate OFCCP.”
  • There! Killed it! This office is just there to enforce Executive Order (EO) 11246, which requires federal contractors and subcontractors to commit to nondiscrimination. Nothing important to see here. Move along.
• (Pg. 584) “Rescind EO 11246“
  • There. Those behind Project 2025 have been trying to kill this off since 1965.

The GOP is frightened by complexity and science.

PRO-LIFE MEASURES

(Pg. 585) Forced-birthers on the job.

• (Pg. 585) “Promote pro-life workplace accommodations for mothers. Federal law should protect life and promote pro-family policies.“
  • OK, these sentences are hilarious. They present the following three laws like they love them. It takes about 5 minutes of research to see that they are liars.
    • Pregnancy Discrimination Act -This was passed back in 1978, for goodness sakes, and which was a Democrat authored and almost entirely Democrat-cosponsored event. It has made the GOP unhappy ever since. How dare we liberal commies tell businesses how to deal with women?
    • The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) -The GOP voted against this, of course, but it passed as part of an appropriations act, also authored by Democrats. BTW, Seventeen anti-abortion Republican attorneys general are suing to overturn this law.
    • The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) – “SENATE REPUBLICANS ‘HAVE DECLARED WAR’ ON THE ADA, SAYS Sen. Tammy Duckworth” Huh! So maybe not so much. P.S. This law was signed by Republican President George H. Bush.
    • No insurance for abortions – They also make sure we know that none of these laws specifically provide health insurance benefits for elective abortions.
  • Can we mention here the other crappy Project 2025 bits the GOP wanted to do to women in their 2024 appropriations bill? (Remember the Maya Angelou quote here!) This was a “nearly all-of-government attack on women’s economic security, reproductive care access, and quality health care
    • Defund the Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau, 100-year-old federal agency tasked with improving conditions for women at work, bills targeting the gender pay gap 
    • Cut $75 million for the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division – the division responsible for outreach and enforcement of key labor laws like the Family and Medical Leave Act, minimum wage and overtime regulations, protections against workplace retaliation, and the right to express breastmilk at work. These laws are critical to women’s participation in the workplace – especially the lowest paid workers.
    • Cut $35 million for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which protects Americans from job discrimination and sues companies found to engage in prohibited workplace behavior, like sexual harassment.
    • Eliminate funding for multiple programs that support diversity in the health care workforce, including the Health Careers Opportunity Program (HCOP), the Centers of Excellence (COE), and the Nursing Workforce Diversity (NWD). Women are a large share of the health care industry, though women and particularly women of color are underrepresented at the senior levels.
    • End all funding for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), which supports research to improve health care quality, address inequities, reduce costs, advance patient safety, decrease medical errors, and broaden access to primary care and maternity care.
    • Cut nearly $800 million from government programs that fund maternal and child health and improve women’s health care
    • Drastically cut key health equity programs such as a $49 million cut for the Office of Minority Health, and a $24 million cut for the Minority HIV/AIDS Initiative
    • Slash funding for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services by $798 million.
    • Restrict the federal government’s ability to cover and support abortion care by prohibiting: federal dollars for abortion care for those who receive care or insurance from the U.S. government, allowing service members to travel for care, the VA from providing abortions in cases of rape, incest or the health/life of the mother, and abortion counseling.
    • Eliminate funding for Title X Family Planning
    • Eliminate all federal funding for Planned Parenthood
    • Reinstate medically unnecessary restrictions on and undermining the FDA’s authority over mifepristone
    • Reinstate and making permanent the Global Gag Rule
• (Pg. 585) “Pass a law requiring equal (or greater) benefits for pro-life support for mothers and clarifying abortion exclusions.“
  • This appears to be one of those math problems.
    • Question: If an employer offers employees health care benefits for abortion, they must give = or > benefits of pregnancy, childbirth, maternity and adoption. So, what is the minimum pregnancy care would a woman get if her employer provides [zero] benefits for abortion?
    • Answer: [zero]
• “Keep anti-life “benefits” out of benefit plans.“
  • Prevent the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) from helping individual states to grant coverage for abortion health care.

RELIGION (This should not BE a section in a government plan!)

(Pg. 585) Removing the wall protecting you from the religious beliefs of an employer, some random employee or an organization’s religious beliefs.

• (Pg. 585/586) “Provide robust protections for religious employers.”
  • Let employers in all kinds of businesses, not just religious ones, burden the civil rights of employees and potential clients and customers, with their personal beliefs about marriage, gender and sexuality.
• “Issue an executive order protecting religious employers and employees.”
  • “Religious employers are free to run their businesses according to their religious beliefs, general nondiscrimination laws notwithstanding.” This needs more clarification…Oh, wait…here it is…(See next point.)
• “Congress to make Title VII’s religious organization exemptions to make it more explicit that those employers may make employment decisions based on religion regardless of nondiscrimination laws.” 
  • “Regardless.” That was the word we were missing. Employees can get reasonable accommodations unless it screws with the employer’s business.

(Pg. 586) “General EEOC Reforms” – We’ve already dismissed CRT and DEI. Why is EEOC still hanging around? Not for long, we bet!

Rep. Pressley talks to smacks the author of this chapter, Jonathon Berry. Her transcript is here.

• (Pg. 586-587) The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) needs to get with the program!
  • This boils down to: we don’t like how you’re doing non-discrimination, do it our way instead!
    • They must confess that they have no regulatory powers.
    • They should disclaim power to enter into consent decrees that require employer actions that it could not require under the laws it enforces.
    • Reorient their enforcement against those who fail to accommodate disability, religion, pregnancy (but not abortion.)

(Pg. 587) “Refocusing Labor Regulation on the Good of the Family.” OMG, It actually says that while cheating them!

They stand ready to fight against “woke” nonsense, like respecting your employees’ gender, etc..(except for all those pro-pregnancy bills to Democrats got passed), to “focus on the family.”

• (Pg. 587) “Allow workers to accumulate paid time off.“
  • Is this something new? Checked this nifty list and only deep blue California has both statutory policies on vacation pay AND prevents “use-it-or-lose-it” policies set by the employer.
• (Pg. 587) “Congress should enact the Working Families Flexibility Act.“
  • THIS IS A SCAM! – one of the misnamed bills the GOP specializes in and is a really bad deal for workers and no Democrat voted for it. Labor advocates oppose because it would let employers provide comp time instead of time-and-a-half overtime pay. 
    • It would permit employers to demand more hours from their employees without any guarantee that the comp time employees earn will be available to use when they need it.
    • Employers can veto employees’ requests to use accrued comp time anytime they feel the employee’s absence will “unduly disrupt” the employer’s business – even if the request is for an urgent need like caring for a sick child or elderly parent!
    • It would particularly effect people of color and women, who make up a disproportionate share of the low-wage workforce. 
    • EPI noted that the legislation does not create employee rights, rather it creates a new employer right – the right to delay paying any wages for overtime work for as long as 13 months.
      • ACTUALLY HELPFUL THINGS!
        • Biden just put out a new rule that would require employers to pay overtime to so-called white collar workers who make less than $55,000 a year. That’s up from the current threshold of $35,568 which has been in place since 2019 when Trump administration raised it from $23,660. In another significant change, the rule proposes automatic increases to the salary level each year.
• (Pg. 587) “Congress should incentivize on-site childcare“.
  • That’s what WOKE companies like Patagonia do. However, “just 7% of women work for an employer that offers on-site childcare or a childcare subsidy. These estimates are consistently lower for women who work part-time, are self-employed, are low-income, or live in rural areas.” These women are going to more stressed if the GOP wins, because Project 2025 is going to defund Head Start! (See Pg. 482 in the chapter on the Department of Health and Human Services)

• (Pg. 587) “Congress should amend the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to clarify that an employer’s expenses in providing on-site childcare are not part of an employee’s regular rate of pay.“
  • Actually, this seems backwards. If the employee has to contribute to on-site childcare, and they have to work extra hours, they should get more money to pay for the resulting extra child-care required. Especially if they have to work outside the on-site care center’s hours, resulting in a bill from private carers.
• (Pg. 587)”DOL should commit to honest study of the challenges for women in the world of professional work.“
  • After trying to defund the Women’s Bureau at the DOL, Project 2025 advocates for an “honest study” of the challenges for women in the world of professional work.” One challenge would be keeping male GOP staffers from defunding the Women’s Bureau, apparently.
• (Pg. 588) “The Bureau should rededicate its research budget towards open inquiry, especially to disentangle the influences on women’s workforce participation and to understand the true causes of earnings gaps between men and women.”
  • Here. Let us help. It’s toxic patriarchy, embodied in the Christian Nationalism crap you’re also pushing. You’re welcome.
• (Pg. 588) “Equalize retirement savings access across married households.”
  • See next point for comments.
• (Pg. 588) “To equalize access to tax-free retirement savings for married couples, the limit for married couples on 401(k) and similar work- based retirement savings accounts should be double the limit for individuals, regardless of the allocation of work between the couple.”
  • Hey, we’re actually OK with this, as long as the parties involved, even one of those “trad wifes,” gets to keep their halves in separate accounts in case of divorce. Why? Because the GOP, in trying to enforce the patriarchal crap of Christian Nationalism, is also trying to eliminate no-fault divorce, even from abusive shitheads (Hi, JD Vance!). We are guessing that getting older, fatter, or less willing to have sex with one’s husband will remain viable “faults” for which men can trade in wives for newer, younger models, just like our former president did. In June 2023, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) signed a law ending permanent alimony in Florida, so women should pay attention to the details of any legislation that can end up enriching one party over the other.

(Pg. 588) “Family Statistics” – Turning the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics into a propaganda machine!

• Not sure what this bureau does? The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures labor market activity, working conditions, price changes, and productivity in the U.S. economy to support public and private decision making.
• What is the Consumer Price Index (CPI)? The Consumer Price Index is a measure of the average change overtime in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services.
• What’s in the CPI market basket? The market basket is developed from detailed expenditure information provided by families and individuals on what they actually bought and is divided into seven major groups, such as food and beverages or housing.

• (Pg. 588) “Congress should establish an Assistant Commissioner for Family Statistics within the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
  • This is simply a ploy to put another Schedule-F Trump-toady into the system to make sure that the reports come out the way they need them to for propaganda purposes.
• (Pg. 588) “Congress should require the Bureau to establish a pilot survey with a sample comparable to the BLS Current Population Survey that would publish monthly estimates for measures of the American family’s wellbeing, and appropriate sufficient funds for that purpose.”
  • They want to add metrics like marriage and fertility rates, the share of children living with both biological parents and the cost of middle-class essentials. This also sounds like hyoooge boondoggle for GOP-related consulting firms, similar to how former legislator Ben Sasse channeled millions to GOP allies, and secretive contracts, in his new gig as the University of Florida’s president.
• (Pg. 588) “Congress should require that the Consumer Price Index market basket include measurable family-essential goods.”
  • They probably just want to pull out childless cat ladies and teachers, single parents, older people and others who count for nothing in their Christian Nationalist family-first world from the survey pool.

(Pg. 589) “Sabbath Rest” – God ordained the Sabbath as a day of rest”…Seriously, WTH is this doing in a government policy document?

Oh, the suspense! What day would this Sabbath fall on? Sunday for Christians? The far older Jewish tradition of “sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday? Friday is the day of prayer for Muslims? Just kidding! You know which one it is!

• (Pg. 589) Congress should encourage communal rest by amending the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to require that workers be paid time and a half for hours worked on the Sabbath.
  • Which would default to Sunday. Of course, as this is Christian Nationalism on the hoof. However, a lot of employers are going to be pretty sad about this…
• (Pg. 589) “…the proper role of government in helping to enable individuals to practice their religion is to reduce barriers to work options and to fruitful employer and employee relations.”
  • No, really. There is NO PROPER ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IN HELPING TO ENABLE INDIVIDUALS TO PRACTICE THEIR RELIGION. See “First Amendment – Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

(Pg. 589) “Teleworking” – the GOP is already trying to stop it!

• (Pg. 589) “Congress should clarify that overtime for telework applies only if the employee exceeds 10 hours of work in a specific day (and the total hours for the week exceed 40).”
  • This is already covered in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) Maybe it’s because they so thoroughly intend to undermine the FSLA…
• (Pg. 590) “DOL should clarify that an employee given the option to telework need only record time if the quantity of work assigned for that day exceeds the usual amount of work that employee performs so that the employee need not track every time he logs in and out and the employer need not do so either.”
  • OK. Stop keystroke monitoring, while you’re at it.
• (Pg. 590) “DOL should clarify that a home office is not subject to OSHA regulations and that time to set up a home office is not compensable time or eligible for overtime calculations. DOL should likewise clarify that reimbursement for home office expenses is not part of an employee’s regular rate, even if those reimbursements are repetitive (such as for internet or cell phone service).”
  • This is in line with the GOP’s current efforts to roll back the telework clock to 2019. They also want to bar the Defense Department from covering teleworking costs and reducing the Social Security Administration’s budget for its capital branch.
  • If an employee requires time or expense to setup needed equipment, they should get paid.
  • Contrary to GOP claims that there is a lack data on remote work, the White House Office of Personnel Management’s annual report revealed significant advantages to telework in terms of employee retention and engagement, with more than 84 percent of employees and managers acknowledge improvements in work quality and customer satisfaction due to remote work. 

(Pg. 590) “Making Family-Sustaining Work Accessible” – the GOP con game behind independent contracting!

This video is ferocious!

• (Pg. 590) Protect flexible work options and worker independence (independent contractors)
  • Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, and Instacart were willing to spend over $224 million to convince voters to remove employee benefits from gig workers in California, including medical benefits in a country that uses jobs to determine who has health insurance.
  • What did that multi-million dollar media blitz buy them?
    • “One survey of California voters founds that 40 percent of “yes” voters thought they were supporting gig workers’ ability to earn a living wage. Other voters said they did not realize they were making a choice between guaranteed rights and protections through employment and “an arbitrary set of supplemental benefits . . . designed by the gig companies.”

Nothing on the gig worker side seems all that “family-sustaining” to us…

Employees = actual “family-sustaining work“	Gig workers
Sick time	None. Can be penalized for getting sick or taking off for family emergencies.
Minimum wage	Piecemeal. After penalties and fees removed, average wage is now $6.20/hour, lower than $7.25 national minimum wage. Economists think the real wage is $5.64/hour after expenses and waiting time are taken into account.
Rights to unionize	No. (Corporations align with fascists to destroy unions.)
Protection from abuse	None. In fact, may be penalized or cancelled if they refuse obviously risky jobs/clients/sexual harassment
Access to equipment/ supplies as required to do work	Equipment, insurance, fuel, maintenance provided by employee, not compensated for wear and tear.
Health care benefits	Technically available for a few – app-based workers need to a purchase a covered policy in advance and get enough work hours to qualify for the stipend; if they don’t, they must pay the full cost of the premium. Only 15% have applied under those conditions.
Legal protections – Can sue for discrimination or abuse	Arbitrary deactivation of accounts with no redress. App-based companies’ business model now protected from any legal or worker challenge, so the companies could pass all costs onto workers and consumers.

High Wonk Factor Ahead!!!

• (Pg. 591) NLRB and DOL should return to their 2019 and 2021 independent contractor rules that provided much-needed clarity for workers and employers.
  • Project 2025 would cut labor costs by making it easier to classify gig workers like Uber and Lyft drivers as independent contractors and not employees by going back to the older standard.
  • “Union-supporters and Democrats are likely to view the new rule [2024] as a victory for workers, as the rule makes it easier for workers to be classified as employees and thus receive the protections afforded by the National Labor Relations Act.
  • Small companies with fewer employees who take on large responsibilities are most likely to be affected by the DOL’s new rule.
  • Large companies employing gig workers, such as Uber and Instacart, are unlikely to be greatly impacted. The nature of Uber drivers and Instacart drivers’ work will likely still classify them as independent contractors under the FLSA. 

Trump’s older version (on the left in the chart below) makes it easier to misclassify a worker as independent contractors. EPI protested this rule when it was released, stating that by placing undue weight on only two of the five factors determining employment status, instead of the equal consideration of all, the proposed rule was in violation of the plain language of the FLSA’s definition of “employ,” and ignore U.S. Supreme Court and federal circuit court authority interpreting the Act. That weighting also would cost misclassified workers billions of dollars annually. “If the true number of workers affected is equivalent to just half of the 4.9 million workers currently estimated above to be misclassified or working off the books, workers would lose on the order of $17 billion annually as a result of this rule …and will cost the social insurance system hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Further, due to things like occupational segregation by race, discrimination, and other labor market disparities rooted in structural racism, Black and Latinx workers are more likely to work in the occupations affected by this rule.“

Comparisons of NRLB/DOL standards to determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. :

NLRB 2019/ DOL 2021 (Trump) – TWO sections weighted more heavily	New 2024 standards – all aspects equally important. (Biden) Employee friendly.
(1) CORE IMPORTANCE – nature and degree of control over the work	(1) opportunity for profit or loss – no opportunity = employee a. Can determine or negotiate pay b. Chooses to accept or decline tasks or chooses the order or time the job is performed c. Attempts to expand their business or secure more work d. Makes hiring decisions e. Makes decisions on purchasing materials and equipment, and/or rent spaces
(2) CORE IMPORTANT – opportunity for profit or loss	(2) investments by the worker and the potential employer
(3) less important – amount of skill required	(3) the degree of permanence of the work relationship. – Independent contractors = sporadic or project-based. – Open-ended = employee.
(4) less important – degree of permanence of the working relationship	(4) the nature and degree of control. – Setting schedules/supervising/non-competes = employee
(5) less important – whether the work is an integral part of the business	(5) the extent to which the work performed is an integral part of the potential employer’s business. – The more important = employee
	(6) skill and initiative –  If the worker depends on the potential employer to provide training and/or does not use a specialized skill = employee.

Why it matters – the comparison of pay, benefits and Social Security contributions based on worker classification:

• (Pg. 591) Congress should establish a bright-line test—based on the level of control an individual exercises over his or her work—to determine whether a payee is an employee or an independent contractor, across all relevant laws.
  • Hmmm, seems like there are lots of “bright-lines in the chart above. (Experts, chime in. We’re just using the chart above…)
    • Any worker who is penalized in any way for refusing to take an unsafe job or a job that returns pay below the minimum wage IS AN EMPLOYEE.
    • Any job that a worker must abide by a company schedules, attend their training sessions, and/or wear or use any form of corporate branding, IS AN EMPLOYEE.
    • Driving people or things around is not a specialized skill. Putting things in boxes or picking things is not a specialized skill. Any worker who does these types of jobs IS AN EMPLOYEE.
• (Pg. 591) Congress should provide a safe harbor from employer-employee status for companies that offer independent workers access to earned benefits.
  • They would have to be equal to that of employees to count. And that is never going to happen.

(Pg. 591) Protect Small Businesses and Entrepreneurship (Joint Employer)

• (Pg. 591) DOL and NLRB should return to the long-standing approach to defining joint employers based on “direct and immediate” control.
  • NLRB had issued a new rule that stated that two employers may be considered joint employers of a group of employees if each entity has the ability to share or codetermine one or more of the employees’ term and conditions of employmement including:
    • Wages, benefits, and other compensation;
    • Hours of work and scheduling;
    • The assignment of duties to be performed;
    • The supervision of the performance of duties;
    • Work rules and directions governing the manner, means, and methods of the performance of duties and the grounds for discipline;
    • The tenure of employment, including hiring and discharge; and
    • Working conditions related to the safety and health of employees.
  • This rule made it easier for an employee to prove “joint employer status.” However in March of 2024, a Texas 2024, federal district court vacated the NLRB’s new rule and return to the more corporate-friendly version.
• (Pg. 591) Congress should enact the Save Local Business Act, which would codify the long-standing definition that has existed outside the Obama-era and Biden-proposed rules
  • “While the legislation is cast as a boon for small-business owners, it is actually an effort to unravel 80-year-old worker safeguards, specifically “joint-employer” responsibility requirements that help to hold companies that cheat workers out of earned wages or violate the right of workers to come together in unions accountable for those actions. In tandem with this effort, President Donald Trump is using his executive authority to ensure that his administration does not enforce these long-standing workplace laws.”

(Pg. 592) Overtime Pay Threshold

(American Progress) “Overtime eligibility and access are already among the most common forms of wage theft and other violations of the law by employers. From 2013 to 2023, overtime violations accounted for 82 percent of back wages for Fair Labor Standards Act violations—which cover minimum wage, overtime, retaliation, and tip theft by employers. Most violators of these laws face minimal consequences. A system rife with abuse needs clearer guidance and more enforcement, not additional “flexibility” for employers to decide who gets overtime pay and when.…Overtime pay increases workers’ paychecks and helps protect their time for personal and family obligations. When workers aren’t eligible for overtime, employers can force them to work 60-to-70-hour workweeks without any extra pay.”

• (Pg. 592) DOL should maintain an overtime threshold that does not punish businesses in lower-cost regions (e.g., the southeast United States).
  • (americanprogress.org) “Tying wage thresholds to regional variations in what businesses prefer to pay their workers is a long-standing conservative approach that codifies preexisting wage inequality. American workers’ wages have consistently been lowest in the South, originating in slavery. This has only been furthered by sharecropping, the development of a tipping system that shifts the burden of paying wages to customers rather than employers, ongoing discrimination, and low union density.“
• (Pg. 592) Congress should clarify that the “regular rate” for overtime pay is based on the salary paid rather than all benefits provided. This would enable employers to offer additional benefits to employees without fear that those benefits would dramatically increase overtime pay.
  • HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! If they were so all-fired up to give employees MORE benefits, we wouldn’t be here today.
• (Pg. 592) Congress should provide flexibility to employers and employees to calculate the overtime period over a longer number of weeks. Specifically, employers and employees should be able to set a two- or four- week period over which to calculate overtime. This would give workers greater flexibility to work more hours in one week and fewer hours in the next and would not require the employer to pay them more for that same total number of hours of work during the entire period.
  • Prone to abuse: (American Progress) “Providing employers with less clarity about their wage obligations introduces more opportunities for fraud, abuse, and even honest mistakes. Currently, overtime is calculated weekly, which allows workers to keep track of their time accurately over a shorter time frame and to have more consistent expectations for their schedule. But Project 2025 proposes allowing the employer to choose the time period, giving employees less control of and visibility into their own paychecks.“
  • No compensation for resultant expenses/losses from a fluctuating work week:
    • Workers with children or others who need regular care may not be able to manage these obligations without hiring help to cover longer working hours. Project 2025 does not mention adding more pay for this issue. Although it trumpets the FAMILY, they don’t seem to understand how anything but a “trad-wife” family might work.
    • What if workers are juggling work with additional education?
    • What if workers’ health is dependent on regular rest schedule?

(Pg. 593) Compliance-Assistance Programming

• (Pg. 593) Labor agencies should provide compliance assistance to help businesses and workers better understand the agencies’ position on their own rules and should do so in a way that makes it easier to follow those rules.
  • HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Read all about how the GOP treats labor issues here.
• (Pg. 593) Clear and Restricive Rules on Guidance reports.
  • (We had to go to labor industry lawyer blogs to figure this one out.) This article headline helps clarify the issue. The GOP does not like government having any control over their donor corporations and oligarchs.

“On January 20, 2021, the Biden Administration revoked the Trump Administration Executive Order (EO) which had restricted agency Guidance. On January 27, 2021, the Department of Labor (DOL) rescinded the “PRO Good Guidance” rule that it had issued pursuant to the Trump EO – a rule that limited the force of informal guidance in DOL enforcement actions.

Guidances under Trump’s PRO Good Guidance Rule	Guidances after Biden revoked Trump’s rule
Issued fewer guidances and “deprive[d] the Department and subordinate agencies of necessary flexibility” and ““unduly restrict[ed] the Department’s ability to provide timely guidance on which the public can confidently rely.”	Employers should expect more Guidance.
Trump’s EO gave employers, who already have the upper-hand in all worker/employer issues, more “freedom to interpret federal statutes.	Employers should expect the Department of Labor (and likely other federal agencies) to insist on compliance with each and every issuance of Guidance.
Trump’s DOL removed over 3,200 guidance documents, leaving holes in interpretations.	More Guidance may mean more clarity in agency enforcement standards
	Whether any particular Guidance is legally binding will still depend on court rulings, as it may be inconsistent with governing statutes or the Constitution .

• (Pg. 593) DOL should reinstitute the PRO Good Guidance rule via notice and comment.
  • See chart above. Basically, the GOP-approved guidance rule puts more power in the hands of corporate counsel.
• (Pg. 593) Congress should amend the Administrative Procedure Act to explicitly limit the use of guidance documents.
  • “The Biden Executive Order that led to this agency action…states that the Administration intends “to use available tools to confront urgent challenges,” including the pandemic, economic recovery, racial justice and climate change. The Order added that the Administration is relying on “robust agency action” to achieve its goals.”

(Pg. 594) Exemptions from Regulations for Small Business

The Regulatory Flexibility Act: An Overview
Congress enacted the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA;5 U.S.C. §§601-612) in 1980 to require federal agencies to consider the effects of their regulations on small businesses and other small entities. If a regulation is expected to have a “significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities,” the RFAr equires the issuing agency to consider regulatory impacts and alternatives, with the goal of minimizing significant economic impacts on small entities.

• (Pg. 594) The labor agencies should exercise their available discretion and duties under the Regulatory Flexibility Act to exempt small entities from regulations where possible.
  • This is already a thing. See light green box above.
• (Pg. 594) Congress should enact legislation increasing the revenue thresholds at which the National Labor Relations Board asserts jurisdiction over employers to match changes in inflation that have occurred since 1935 and better reflect the definition of “small business” used by the federal government.
  • This is intended to leave more employees unprotected.

(Pg. 595) Education and Vocational Training (putting taxpayer funded Trump Universities everywhere!)

• (Pg. 595) Congress should expand apprenticeship programs outside of the RAP model, re-creating the IRAP system by statute and allowing approved entities such as trade associations and educational institutions to recognize and oversee apprenticeship programs.
  • If you read the accreditation issues within our chapter on education, and you remember the debacles over scams like Trump University, and accreditation failures like ITT Tech and Corinthian Colleges, you know that opening up taxpayer-funded education to anyone with a business license is an invitation to steal. Student lose – time, energy, and money. Trump, and now Mr. Berry, want to start up the fake education money-machine again.
  • Privatizing America’s apprenticeship programs. “In June 2017, the Trump Administration issued an executive order to develop a parallel unregistered apprenticeship system. These programs, known as IRAPs, would be certified by to-be-determined third-party entities instead of DOL. They wouldn’t be subject to Registered Apprenticeship standards around wages, training structure and quality, and equal opportunity employment.” The order inhibits the Department of Labor (DOL)’s ability to provide proper oversight of federal apprenticeship program standards, which in turn reduces the quality of the program. Seriously. Nothing to see here. Move along.

RAP apprenticeship model (BIDEN)	IRAP apprenticeship model (TRUMP)
Registered Apprenticeship Programs are industry-vetted and approved and validated by the U.S. Department of Labor or a State Apprenticeship Agency.	Pro-employer, non-union apprenticeship programs. Concern that “the creation of a parallel system of Industry Programs may further fragment our national apprenticeship system and introduce programs of widely varying quality.” Opened system up to third-party entities.
Industry Led – Programs are industry-vetted and approved to ensure alignment with industry standards and that apprentices are trained for highly skilled, high-demand occupations.	“Employers and industry groups had leeway in designing their federal apprenticeship programs without much oversight from the government.”
Paid Job –  Apprenticeships are jobs! Apprentices earn progressive wage as their skills and productivity increase.	“IRAP also proposes to exempt apprentices from key labor protections, including increased wages over time, payment of prevailing wages, and equal opportunity employment to underrepresented groups.”
Structured On-the-Job Learning/Mentorship – Programs provide structured on-the-job training to prepare for a successful career, which includes instruction from an experienced mentor.	“they [IRAPS] lack the standardized training rigor that ensures employers know they are hiring a worker with high-quality training.
Supplemental Education – Apprentices are provided supplemental classroom education based on the employers unique training needs to ensure quality and success.
Diversity – Programs are designed to reflect the communities in which they operate through strong non-discrimination, anti-harassment, and recruitment practices to ensure access, equity, and inclusion.	“The department instead requires sponsors to ensure their outreach and recruitment extends to all “without regard to race, sex, ethnicity, or disability”—a notable shift from the existing rules prohibiting discrimination based on race, sex, or other characteristics. Apprenticeship programs are already highly unequal by gender and race, and this provision would likely make that worse.”
Quality & Safety – Apprentices are afforded worker protections while receiving rigorous training to equip them with the skills they need to succeed and the proper training and supervision they need to be safe.	“…the Labor Department would recognize 70 IRAP accreditors and give them authority to determine if a program meets standards that the Labor Department developed. IRAPs would lack specific enforcement mechanisms to assure quality control and crack down on accreditors or programs that have poor outcomes. IRAPs are not unlike the scam perpetuated by for-profit, worthless career and trade schools that left students jobless and broke.”
Credentials – Apprentices earn a portable, nationally-recognized credential within their industry.	(SMART union) IRAP was “a bad faith attempt by anti-union contractors and politicians to undermine high-quality union apprenticeship programs and replace them with a watered-down system of certifications.”
Statistics on successful job attainment and salaries are published.	“Under the measure, employers and industry groups had leeway in designing their federal apprenticeship programs without much oversight from the government. For example, appointed organizations or SREs weren’t required to report to the DOL information on a program’s success rate, according to Bloomberg Law.”

• (Pg. 595) Encourage and enable religious organizations to participate in apprenticeship programs, etc. Both DOL and NLRB should facilitate religious organizations helping to strengthen working families via apprenticeship programs, worker organizations, vocational training, benefits networks, etc.
  • Hard NO. The Department of Labor does not have an affirmative responsibility to advocate for religious organizations. Not paying another taxpayer dollar to organizations that discriminate against our neighbors, which would become the standard under a Trump/Heritage Foundation administration.

(Pg. 595) “Hazard-order Regulations” – after decimating public schools, this is the next logical step in expanding the “mudsill” caste.

• (Pg. 595) DOL should amend its hazard-order regulations to permit teenage workers access to work in regulated jobs with proper training and parental consent. “Some young adults show an interest in inherently dangerous jobs. Current rules forbid many young people, even if their family is running the business, from working in such jobs. This results in worker shortages in dangerous fields and often discourages otherwise interested young workers from trying the more dangerous jobs. With parental consent and proper training, certain young adults [his recommendation is for sub-adults, i.e. teens] should be allowed to learn and work in more dangerous occupations.”
  • What do normal people say? (governing.com) “Corporations have a long history of exploiting every tragedy in front of them for their gain, and to the detriment of many for the wealth of the few,” says Jessie Ulibarri, co-executive director of State Innovation Exchange (SiX), a progressive policy group. “It makes sense that corporations are using their significant financial and legislative power to put kids on the front lines of some of the most dangerous jobs. It will help their bottom line.”
  • (NELP) Over the past decade, child labor law violations have tripled by some accounts. Since 2019, the DOL has reported a staggering 88 percent increase in child labor law violations. In FY2023, the Wage and Hour division of DOL was able to close 955 cases with child labor violations and found that 5,800 children were employed in violation of child labor laws in FY2023.
    • One such investigation came after a 16-year-old child lost both legs at a construction site in Vancouver, Washington while operating dangerous machinery. That employer was shown to have repeatedly put minors in harm’s way by allowing them to use or work perilously close to heavy machinery. Alarmingly, despite the rise in children being exploited for cheap illegal labor, many state legislatures across the country are taking steps to weaken child labor laws. This makes the DOL’s ability to enforce federal labor laws all the more critical and proposed House Republican cuts all the more dangerous and irresponsible.

(Pg. 595) Workforce Training Grant Program – Graft, Grift and Greed

First, let’s check in with the current crop of GOP nihilists in the House and see what they are doing for education and job seekers!

What have they done so far? The House Republican 2025 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education bill, and its 11 percent cut of $24.6 billion, furthers Republicans’ goal of ending public education in America and eliminates job opportunities for young adults and working families.

What do they want to do in Project 2025?

• (Pg. 595) Congress should create an employer grant worth up to $10,000 per year or pro-rated portion thereof for each worker engaged in on-the-job training, defined as some share of paid time spent in a formal training program.
  • We created the little illustration above to make this whole scam clearer.
    • So much corruption potential here… a private company can get $10k per head, whether or not the students learn anything useful, with the only punishment being that they could get kicked out of the program and have to rename themselves before they head back to the trough. This is basically turning the whole country into ITT Tech, or Corinthian Colleges. Our chapter on the Department of Education covers this whole “relaxing of accreditation” scam.

(Pg. 596) Federal “BA Box”

• (Pg. 596) Adopt the civil service’s skills-based hiring standards for federal contractors. The President should direct the Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy to adopt the civil service’s skills-based hiring standards for federal contractors and issue waivers from degree-based staffing requirements in existing contracts.
  • This is already happening in multiple states.
• Pg. 596) Prohibit the use of a BA requirement in job descriptions. Congress should prohibit the inclusion of a BA requirement in job descriptions for all private sector employers, or the use of a BA requirement to screen applicants using algorithms, except where a BA from a particular type of institution or in a particular field is a bona fide requirement of the position.
  • This is none of the federal government’s business. Seriously. And is probably a violation of 1st Amendment rights.

(Pg. 597) Federal Workforce Development Programs

• (Pg. 597) Evaluate and streamline workforce development programs, ensuring evidence-based outcomes.
  • Nope. Your party has a history of destroying accreditation standards and exposing students to useless programs and debt.
  • You will strip DEI language from apprenticeship programs, and balk at DOL efforts to provide more apprenticeship opportunities for underrepresented communities, which consistently have low participation rates in registered apprenticeships.
  • You will revert to states having their own standards for training, vs. using national industry standards in apprenticeships, which ensure workers have the same skills no matter where they work, and more flexibility in their job searches. (Example: utility workers who often travel to other states for emergency assistance when storms knock out power.)
• (Pg. 597) Review employment and training programs to ensure outcome- based metrics.
  • We’re assuming this means more of your for-profit donors will get their hands in this pie. Companies can create their own apprenticeship programs, but they need DOL approval to tap federal apprenticeship funds.

(Pg. 597) Federal Unemployment Insurance Program

• (Pg. 598) Congress should enact bipartisan commonsense UI program reforms, including statutory authority for the Labor Office of Inspector General (OIG) to access all state UI records for the purposes of investigation and requiring state agencies to crossmatch applicants with the National Directory of New Hires.
  • Use recommendations from the GAO report “Unemployment Insurance – DOL Needs to Address Substantial Pandemic UI Fraud and Reduce Persistent Risks“
• (Pg. 598)Congress should also develop a framework (through commission of a congressional report to serve as a blueprint) of technical standards on broader tech topics like usability, state agency cybersecurity postures, data taxonomy standardization, and/or identity verification standards.
  • Use recommendations from the GAO report “Unemployment Insurance – DOL Needs to Address Substantial Pandemic UI Fraud and Reduce Persistent Risks“
• (Pg. 598) Congress should provide DOL with more reasonable enforcement tools for the UI system.
  • Use recommendations from the GAO report “Unemployment Insurance – DOL Needs to Address Substantial Pandemic UI Fraud and Reduce Persistent Risks“
• (Pg. 598) DOL should review all actual or planned procurements against the $2 billion (under the American Rescue Plan Act) for UI fraud detection, accessibility, and equity investments.
  • Why are you jamming “equity investments” in this?

WORKER VOICE AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

(Pg. 599) Non-Union Worker Voice and Representation.

• (Pg. 599) Congress should reintroduce and pass the Teamwork for Employees and Managers (TEAM) Act of 2022. (TEAM Act). Ummm, NO.

(Pg. 599) Union Transparency – They want more policing of workers

What is the Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS)? (DOL.gov) The OLMS helps ensure that workers have a voice in the workplace and highlights the important role unions play in the modern American economy. OLMS promotes labor-management transparency by making available reports showing unions’ financial condition and employers’ expenditures for their activities in persuading workers during union organizing campaigns. It promotes labor union democracy and financial integrity through adopting and enforcing standards for union officer elections and union trusteeships and safeguards for union assets…

• (Pg. 600) Enact transparency rules. The substance of the Intermediate Bodies Rule should pass into law, either through rulemaking or through legislation. The T-1 Trust Annual Report annual filing requirement should be restored.
  • The T-1 Trust Annual Report requirement was removed as duplicative and unnecessary, and that “enforcing the filing of the Form T-1 may actually deprive the department of resources needed to enforce the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act.…The rescission of this rule will allow OLMS to devote more resources to holding employers and union officials responsible when they violate the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act.”
• (Pg. 600) Increase funding levels. Congress should expand the funding of the Office of Labor-Management Standards.
  • HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Hilarious! But we’re guessing ol’ Jonathon thinks that a well-funded OLMS office with a Trump lackey in charge will be arresting union members for financial violations by the busload. In its current state, the OLMS states that “As illustrated through OLMS’s enforcement data, the vast majority of union officials and employees do their jobs diligently and without incident. When our investigations actually reveal civil and criminal violations, the union is typically the victim.”

Interpreting “Protected Concerted Activity”

(NLRB.gov) “The right of employees to engage in concerted activity to improve their working conditions is central to the National Labor Relations Act. The Board should not artificially constrain the definition of concerted activity, as the Alstate Maintenance decision did. By returning to the Board’s traditional approach, we better protect employees who seek to improve their working conditions,” said Chairman Lauren McFerran.”

• (Pg. 601) Reverse unreasonable interpretations of “protected concerted activity.” The NLRB should return to the 2019 Alstate Maintenance interpretation of what does and does not constitute protected concerted activity, including listing eight instances of lawful actions by employers.
  • Trump’s DOL narrowed the definition of “protected Concerted Activity” to 5 factors, placing more power in the hands of employers to prevent organizing among employees. Biden’s NLRB has re-expanded it.

Injunctive Relief and Worker Organizing Activities

What is the 10(j) injunction?: (NLRB) Section 10(j) of the National Labor Relations Act authorizes the National Labor Relations Board to seek temporary injunctions against employers and unions in federal district courts to stop unfair labor practices while the case is being litigated before administrative law judges and the Board. These temporary injunctions are needed to protect the process of collective bargaining and employee rights under the Act, and to ensure that Board decisions will be meaningful.

• (Pg. 601) Increase the use of 10( j) injunctive relief.

Dues-Funded Worker Centers – More policing of workers!

• (Pg. 601) Investigate worker centers and require financial disclosures. DOL should investigate worker centers that look and act like unions and bring enforcement actions to require them to file the same financial disclosures.

Office of Labor-Management Standards Initiative

• (Pg. 602) Revise investigation standards. The Office of Labor-Management Standards should revise its investigation standards to authorize investigations without receiving a formal complaint.

Persuader Rule

(Persuader rule issues starts at 9:35. Read Julia Rock’s article here. )

• (Pg. 602) DOL should rescind the persuader rule once again should the Biden Administration revive it.
  • So this is what Biden did: “As the Department stated in its proposed revision, both the public and the employees whose rights are at issue have an interest in understanding the full scope of activities undertaken by employers to persuade employees regarding the exercise of their rights to organize or bargain collectively, to surveil employees, or to commit unfair labor practices. This interest is heightened when the employees’ own tax dollars may be indirectly funding an employer’s reportable activities. The public and employees also have an interest in knowing whether the federal government is paying for goods and services from an employer who would seek to engage in activity that may disrupt the harmonious labor relations that the federal government is bound to protect.“
  • Employers to file a report – an LM-10, subject to certain exemptions, covering the following payments and arrangements made in a fiscal year:
    • a labor organization or its officers, agents, or employees;
    • payments to employees for the purpose of causing them to persuade other employees with respect to their bargaining and representation rights;
    • payments for the purpose of interfering with employees in the exercise of their bargaining and representation rights or for obtaining information on employee or labor organization activities in connection with labor disputes involving their employer;
    • and arrangements (including related payments) with a labor relations consultant for the purpose of persuading employees with respect to their bargaining and representation rights, or for obtaining information concerning employee activities in connection with a labor dispute involving their employer.

Unionizing the Workplace: Card Check vs. Secret Ballot

Guaranteed that even the smallest details are noted in Project 2025 when they are proven to favor employers.

• (Pg. 603) Discard “card check.”
  • CARD CHECKS – LESS PRONE TO EMPLOYER INTERFERENCE: (cepr.net) The process of union certification is a critical area of labor rights, acting as a precursor to collective bargaining. One method, card check, simplifies this process by allowing workers to express their desire for union representation through majority sign-up. Because it reduces opportunities for employer interference and expedites union certification, card check has come under significant fire from those who oppose unions.
  • CARD CHECKS – FASTER: Card check is a quick and efficient way for workers to indicate whether they want to be represented by a union. Workers who desire a union simply sign authorization cards indicating their support. If a majority (typically 50 percent plus one) sign cards, the union is recognized as the employees’ representative, and the newly authorized union and its members begin negotiating a collective bargaining agreement. Card check certification allows workers to move quickly from establishing majority support for their union to meeting their employer at the bargaining table.
  • SECRET BALLOTS CAN BE IMPOSED BY MANAGEMENT TO SLOW UNION ROLL: While private sector employers can voluntarily recognize their employees’ union based on card check, they are not obligated to do so; employers have the option to petition the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) even if the majority of workers have signed cards in support of the union. The NLRB adjudicates the matter by running a secret ballot election to determine whether the majority of those eligible for the bargaining unit support the union.The secret ballot election typically involves a prolonged campaign period, which gives employers ample time to interfere. The distinction between card check and secret ballot elections may seem inconsequential, but it makes a significant difference in union certification success rates.

Contract Bar Rule

• (Pg. 603) Eliminate the contract bar rule
  • Why we shouldn’t:
    • CONTRACT BAR RULE IN EFFECT: On April 21, 2021, the NLBR supports its long-standing contract-bar doctrine, which provides stability in the relationship among the employer, a collective bargaining representative, and its employee-members. 
    • STOPS OUSTING UNIONS:The contract-bar doctrine prohibits all petitions that could oust an existing union, by employees who are covered by a valid collective-bargaining agreement for three years or the duration of the agreement – whichever is shorter.  The doctrine permits an election petition to be filed by representative employees only during a 30-day “window period,” which is typically between the last 60 and 90 days prior to the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement; after the contract expires; or after the third anniversary of any CBA that is longer than three years.  The final 60-day period of the agreement is considered an “insulated period,” where no election petition may be filed.

Tailoring National Employment Rules – WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! – Destruction of all labor laws here!

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

• (Pg. 603) Congress should amend the NLRA to authorize collective bargaining to treat national employment laws and regulations as negotiable defaults. For example, this reform would allow a union to bless a relaxed overtime trigger (e.g., 45 hours a week, or 80 hours over two weeks) in exchange for firm employer commitments on predictable scheduling.
  • With just this one item, Berry proposes to dump all worker rights and protections into the toilet. There is no bottom here – they could throw out minimum wage laws, safety laws, child labor laws. Anything. Instead of bargaining to improve their positions above the basic legal minimum, union leaders would be forced to start from zero.
• (Pg. 604) End Project Labor Agreement requirements and repeal the Davis–Bacon Act.
  • Explanation of what a Project Labor Agreement is, and why Project 2025 wants it gone.
    • A Project Labor Agreement (PLA), also known as a Community Workforce Agreement, is a pre-hire collective bargaining agreement with one or more labor unions that establishes the terms and conditions of employment for a specific construction project. Before any workers are hired on the project, construction unions have bargaining rights to determine the wage rates and benefits of all employees working on the particular project and to agree to the provisions of the agreement.
• (Pg. 604) End PLA requirements.
  • No. Violates Project 2025’s commitment to “family sustaining” work. Asshole-ry afoot.
• (Pg. 604) Repeal Davis–Bacon.
  • No. Violates Project 2025’s commitment to “family sustaining” work. Asshole-ry afoot.

THE STATES

Worker-led Benefits Experimentation

• (Pg. 605) Approve non-public worker organizations as UI administrators.
  • According to AmericanProgress.org, “Supporting worker organizations to act as unemployment insurance navigators would help increase recipiency rates primarily by improving take-up rates—the share of eligible workers receiving benefits—but also by helping make more workers meet eligibility requirements. Unions and worker centers have a proven track record of representing the interests of workers and have helped many workers navigate through the complex process of receiving benefits—including knowing the law, understanding forms, and working with government websites, systems, and employees—for a range of public programs, such as unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, and health care. Research finds that when workers are part of a union, they are more likely to receive UI benefits.”
  • “Part of the access problem is due to inadequate resources to properly staff the UI administration and update computer systems. Indeed, federal base funding to cover administration of the UI system has declined significantly over recent decades…Capacity problems need to be fixed, such as by providing adequate resources for UI staffing and technology. Similarly, efforts to privatize the administration of UI and related programs should be rejected.
• (Pg. 605) Offer waivers for suitable alternatives. DOL should offer waivers from the standard requirements imposed on unemployment compensation by § 303(a) and § 303(d) of the Social Security Act to states that propose suitable alternatives.
  • There is already a lot of room for states to enact their own unemployment compensation systems, and the feds issue guidances, like allowing states to waive recovery of COVID-related insurance benefit overpayments.
• (Pg. 605) Require organizations to comply with restrictions on political spending. DOL should establish as a precondition for receiving any public funds a requirement that an organization comply with restrictions on political spending as applied to 501(c)(3) charitable organizations.
  • Ah, here we go! This would muzzle unions and worker organizations from participating in politics if they also assist as UI navigators.

Labor Law WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

• (Pg. 605) Pass legislation allowing waivers for states and local governments. “To encourage experimentation and reform efforts at the state and local levels, Congress should pass legislation allowing waivers from federal labor laws like the NLRA and FLSA under certain conditions. State and local governments seeking waivers would be required to demonstrate that their reforms would accomplish the purpose of the underlying law, and not take away any current rights held by workers or employers. In addition, waivers would be limited to a five-year period, after which time they could be modified, canceled, or renewed.”
  • Seriously, no! Do not give these bastards an inch! “The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) under Trump administration, with the guidance of the Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leadership, systematically rolled back workers’ rights to form unions and engage in collective bargaining with their employers, to the detriment of workers, their communities, and the economy. The Trump board has issued a series of significant decisions weakening worker protections under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA/Act). Further, the board has engaged in an unprecedented number of rulemakings aimed at overturning existing worker protections. Finally, the Trump NLRB general counsel (GC) has advanced policies that leave fewer workers protected by the NLRA and has advocated for changes in the law that roll back workers’ rights. The Trump board and GC have elevated corporate interests above those of working men and women and have routinely betrayed the statute they are responsible for administering and enforcing.“
  • “The Trump administration authorized 13 states’ work requirements, which tied Medicaid to employment, though only Arkansas’ got off the ground. More than 18,000 people were removed from the rolls in that state before a U.S. District Court judge blocked the program in 2019 and the Biden administration revoked states’ approvals, effectively stifling efforts nationwide.”

Excessive Occupational Regulation

• (Pg. 606) Congress should ensure that interstate compacts for occupational license recognition that are federally funded do not require new or additional qualifications (that is, qualifications that do not originate from state governments themselves) for licensed professionals to participate.
• (Pg. 606) Congress should ensure that well-qualified licensees are not locked out of the job market by restrictive government programs funded by the federal government.

Wagner-Peyser Staffing Flexibility

• (Pg. 606) DOL should repromulgate the Trump-era staffing flexibility rule, and Congress should codify it.
  • The Trump version was a cheat to get around using non-partisan, well trained, government staffers, instead of throwing cash to their donor corporations.

WORKER RETIREMENT SAVINGS, ESG, AND PENSION REFORMS

(Pg. 606) Remove ESG considerations from ERISA.

• (Pg. 607) DOL should prohibit investing in ERISA plans on the basis of any factors that are unrelated to investor risks and returns. “Because ESG investing necessarily puts other considerations before the interests of the beneficiary, ESG investing by plan managers is an inappropriate strategy under ERISA.”
  • Hey, send this video to Jonathon! STOP INTERFERING WITH CAPITALISM! Beneficiaries appreciate a healthy and livable world, that doesn’t cause lung cancer, dementia, and house-killing fires. We’re sorry you are so sad that the “Social” and “Governance” may use (checks notes…) DEI issues.
• (Pg. 607) DOL should return to the Trump Administration’s approach of permitting only the consideration of pecuniary factors in ERISA. “However, this approach should not preclude the consideration of legitimate non-ESG factors, such as corporate governance, supply chain investment in America, or family-supporting jobs.”
  • Maybe Jonathon has been out of the corporate world so long, he doesn’t remember that climate change affects all those things. That worker safety issues = huge lawsuits. That board of director shenanigans = huge lawsuits.
  • Unfortunately, fund managers HATE being subpoenaed. “As baseless as the attacks have been, the pressure could still work. Vanguard on Wednesday announced it is withdrawing from the Net Zero Asset Managers coalition, in which companies voluntarily committed to reaching net-zero emissions in their portfolios by 2050. In an apparent nod to the ongoing GOP’s investigations, Vanguard said it withdrew “so that we can provide the clarity our investors desire about the role of index funds and about how we think about material risks, including climate-related risks — and to make clear that Vanguard speaks independently on matters of importance to our investors.”
• (Pg. 607) DOL should consider taking enforcement and/or regulatory action to subject investment in China to greater scrutiny under ERISA.

(Pg. 607) Thrift Savings Plan – same as above – rinse and repeat

BlackRock: (Vox) “One of the defining ideas of ESG is that a company is better off accounting and reporting environmental and social risks to investors and clients, rather than being willfully blind to the world around it. This can include a broad swath of issues, such as a company’s reliance on oil, gas, and coal, or exposure to sea-level rise in coastal operations, human rights violations of the countries it operates in, and lack of board diversity and CEO transparency. A big part of the ESG movement, at least right now, is largely about disclosure of these potential bottom-line risks in the future, not necessarily doing anything differently in the present.…
…ESG isn’t woke, but it is evidence of the free market at work
The backlash began early in 2021 when three events sent the signal that ESG was here to stay. The first was [BlackRock CEO] Larry Fink’s embrace of ESG, noting in his 2021 letter that “No issue ranks higher than climate change on our clients’ lists of priorities. They ask us about it nearly every day.” The second came in March, when the Biden administration proposed a regulation to require climate risk disclosure from publicly traded companies, parallel to rules being adopted by the European Union. The third and final was an unlikely coup staged at the annual Exxon shareholder board meeting.”

Link here: https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/chairman-jordan-subpoenas-blackrock-and-state-street-esg-investigation

• (Pg. 608) DOL should reverse efforts to politicize the TSP by removing “mutual fund” windows that encourage ESG, and should clarify the fiduciary duties of the TSP.
  • See green box above “ESG VOCABULARY.”
• (Pg. 608) The federal government should follow the lead of multiple state governments in removing their pension funds from fund managers such as BlackRock and State Street Global Advisers, and contract with a competitive, private-sector manager that will comply with its fiduciary duties.“
  • (Vox) “For months, Republicans have been attacking ESG, the financial shorthand for how some companies consider all the ways the environment, social issues, and corporate governance impact their bottom line. One of the GOP’s recent targets is BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, which oversees some $8 trillion in assets, as a symbol of the financial community’s growing recognition that climate change is too big to ignore…Republican officials in West Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, Missouri, and now Florida have withdrawn billions of dollars from BlackRock’s management. Proponents are planning to introduce a slew of bills in at least 15 states next year to divest pensions and boycott companies for considering sustainability as an aim. At the federal level, House GOP lawmakers are preparing antitrust investigations.
• (Pg. 608) DOL should also consider bringing enforcement actions against BlackRock and State Street Global Advisers for their violations of fiduciary duty while managing the TSP.
  • See Subpoena notice above
• (Pg. 608) Congress should enact legislation authorizing the FRTIB [Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board] to exercise its independent business judgment in exercising the proxy votes for its holdings of the TSP and provide clear proxy voting guidelines for the FRTIB to follow
  • “The FRTIB is charged by law to administer the TSP solely in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries. We seek to improve participant retirement outcomes; provide top-tier defined contribution service to participants; function as a high-performing Agency; and transition successfully to a managed services operating model.”
  • People already seem happy with what’s going on now. What exactly is the GOP’s problem?

• (Pg. 609) DOL should exercise its oversight of the FRTIB to prohibit investments in China.
  • Why is this in Project 2025? It takes 5 seconds to find this: “TSP Fact Sheet – Investment in China – Among the funds available for investment by individual TSP account holders is the International or I Fund. This fund does not, nor has it ever, include investments in mainland China. In addition, no funds within the TSP are invested in companies that the U.S. government has sanctioned through its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in the Department of the Treasury for activities that pose threats to U.S. national security.”
• (Pg. 609) Congress should enact legislation prohibiting investment of the TSP in China.
  • See note above. Is this perchance to prevent Trump’s lickspittles from redirecting funds to China? You can’t control them all!

PENSION REFORMS

(Pg. 609) Public Pension Plan Disclosure

• (Pg. 609) Disclose the fair market value of plan assets and liabilities. Congress should require public pension funds to disclose the fair market value of plan assets and liabilities (using the Treasury yield curve as the discount rate) on an annual basis.

(Pg. 609) Multiemployer Plans

• (Pg. 609) Congress should reform multiemployer pensions to give participants in these plans the same protections as those in single-employer plans.

(Pg. 610) Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation

• (Pg. 610) The PBGC’s annual report must be submitted on time, and with timely data that uses fair-market value principles to calculate the PBGC’s finances.
• (Pg. 610) Congress should increase the variable rate premium on underfunding and eliminate the per-participant cap in order to appropriately take into account risk and limit the degree to which well-funded pension plans must subsidize underfunded plans.

(Pg. 610) Improving Access to Employee Stock Ownership Plans

• (Pg. 611) Provide clear regulations for ESOP valuation and fiduciary conduct.

PUTTING AMERICAN WORKERS FIRST

Putting American workers first means NOT DESTROYING THE ECONOMY! We don’t have multi-million dollars savings accounts stashed away in offshore banks like the oligarchs behind Project 2025! Every bit of their xenophobic agenda – from Trump’s deportation madness, to Project 2025’s ridiculous suggestions for worker visas, is filled with the potential to cause massive shortages, shutdowns and roaring inflation.

(Pg. 611) Immigration

• (Pg. 611) Cap and phase down the H-2A visa program “Congress should immediately cap this program at its current levels and establish a schedule for its gradual and predictable phase-down over the subsequent 10 to 20 years, producing the necessary incentives for the industry to invest in raising productivity, including through capital investment in agricultural equipment, and increasing employment for Americans in the agricultural sector.”
  • “This makes no sense #1″:  If a farmer mechanizes, the job opportunity disappears – whether H-2A or U.S. domestic. Mechanization – to the extent it is affordable – eliminates jobs.
  • “This makes no sense #2″: Project 2025 says it wants to strengthen agricultural families by eliminating farm jobs and forcing farmers who operate on thin profit margins to buy expensive equipment (assuming farming of the particular crop can be mechanized at all).
  • “This makes no sense #3″: Americans don’t want these jobs! U.S. agriculture is hard, dangerous work needing specialized skills. Farmers needs 1.5 to 2 million hired workers each year and have been struggling to fill these positions; in 2019, 56% of California farmers reported being unable to find all the workers they needed over the last five years. Even with perks like 401(k) plans, health insurance, subsidized housing, and profit-sharing bonuses, native-born Americans won’t leave their day jobs for the fields. Nine in 10 agriculture workers in California are still foreign born.
  • “This makes no sense #4″: Demand is growing, not lessening, for agriculture labor.
    • “Approximately 310,000 H-2A visas were issued by the State Department in 2023, up from 298,000 visas in 2022 and four times more than the 75,000 visas in 2010. Farmers say they have turned to the H-2A program because of the difficulty in recruiting farm labor. Half of farmworkers are believed to be undocumented, and many are reaching retirement age. The 275,000 H-2A guest workers of 2020 accounted for 10% of the average employment on crop farms, according to a USDA report.”
  • “This makes no sense #5″: Project 2025 totally missed the actual problem facing farmers!
    • “In March, a bipartisan working group [The House Committee on Agriculture’s bipartisan Agriculture Labor Working Group (ALWG)] unanimously recommended that the H-2A visa, now limited to seasonal work, also be available for year-round work on farms and in processing plants. “One thing that has become clear is the need for dairy products, meat processors, sugar processors, forestry, ranchers, and others to have access to a steady and legal workforce,” said the working group, composed of members of the House Agriculture Committee”
• (Pg. 611) Congress should also encourage the establishment of an industry consortium of agricultural equipment producers and other automation and robotics firms interested in entering the sector and match funding invested by the industry, with intellectual property developed within the consortium freely available to all participants.
  • “It is amazing that the Heritage Foundation would be proposing a socialized business that would drive out legitimate competition from the private sector because of copious funding from the government (“a trillion here, a trillion there, and soon you are talking about real money.”) What if the “automation and robotics firms” are not interested in entering the sector? If they see it as good opportunity, they would already be there. The Heritage Foundation is supposed to be on the conservative side of the political spectrum so one would not expect yet another socialized public sector boondoggle. One would think that at least one of the prominent people who had a hand in creating the Manifesto would hesitate to replicate Synfuels, Solyndra, windmills, and other boondoggles – especially job destroying boondoggles….While the H-2A Program needs reform, the incoherent proposal advanced by the Manifesto is not it. Shame on the Heritage Foundation for such shoddy work.“
• (Pg. 611) Encourage the establishment of an industry consortium and match funding.
  • This will either be a bottomless pit of unaccountable government slush fund going to large industries, or it will never happen, as the GOP slashes all funding.
• (Pg. 612) Phase out the H-2B visa program.
  • This are the people that Trump brings in every year, as “Hotels and Motels, Food Services, Janitorial Services and Landscaping Services” are industries with a high need for these workers. (Cato) “As president, he banned many H‑2B workers, but no more U.S. workers applied… U.S. workers simply will not relocate to work in tough manual labor positions when they are temporary. Very few Americans are looking for temporary employment anyway. H‑2B workers not only are not taking U.S. workers’ jobs. They are creating jobs for them. By doing the jobs that U.S. workers turn down, H‑2B workers increase demand for other jobs elsewhere in the economy that Americans want to fill.“
  • (Pg. 166-167) (From DHS) cut out lower wage workers from immigration eligibility; Treasury: have IRS share tax info of undocumented people; Intelligence: include immigration enforcement into Intelligence Community

(Pg. 612) Hire American Requirements

• (Pg. 612) Congress should mandate that all new federal contracts require at least 70 percent of the contractor’s employees to be U.S. citizens, with the percentage increasing to at least 95 percent over a 10-year period.
  • Good luck finding these workers, boys! U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, “warned that America’s aging demographics were poised to hit the country and the economy “like a ton of bricks.” So, of course, the GOP has decided to make immigration of younger adults nearly impossible, and all the kids women are going to forced to bear – well they won’t be ready to work in agriculture or in coal mines for at least a few years..
• (Pg. 613) Congress must amend the law so that employers can again have the freedom to make hiring Americans a priority.
  • This probably means that they are creating a level playing ground between competing contractors, because they assume that immigrant workers will be paid far less than citizens.

(Pg. 613) Visa Fraud

• (Pg. 613) To protect the American workforce from unscrupulous immigration lawyers, employers, and labor brokers, the department must follow the recommendations of the OIG and institute more robust investigations for suspected visa fraud and speedier debarments for those found guilty.
  • We’re guessing, with their rampant xenophobia, they will retain some money to do this.

INTERNATIONAL LABOR POLICY – (OK, they’re just punking us now!)

(Pg. 613) Leveling the International Playing Field for Workers

• (Pg. 614) Eliminate all forms of forced or compulsory labor.
  • Hey! This is great! And we should start with doing this at home! We expect ROBUST support from the GOP on proposed legislation like California’s Prop. 6, which amends the California Constitution to remove current provision that allows jails and prisons to impose involuntary servitude to punish crime
• (Pg. 614) Protect workers’ rights to organize and participate voluntarily in a union without employer interference or discrimination.
  • Seriously! There were 19 PAGES on how to restrict unions here in America.
• (Pg. 614) Create a rapid-response mechanism to provide for an independent panel investigation of denial of labor rights at covered facilities.
  • It just gets deeper…
• (Pg. 614) Shift the burden of proof by presuming that an alleged violation affects trade and investment, unless otherwise demonstrated.
  • and deeper…

(Pg. 614) Investigate Foreign Labor Violations That Undermine American Workers

• (Pg. 614) The next Administration should focus ILAB investigations on foreign labor violations that do the most to damage American workers’ earning power, specifically regimes that engage in child and forced labor, fail to protect workers’ organizing rights, and permit hazardous or otherwise exploitative working conditions.
  • You mean like the child labor that is already happening here in the U.S.? The abuses of unions that is happening here in the U.S.? The hazardous conditions this very chapter is trying to let children engage with in the U.S.? Seriously!

ORGANIZATIONAL AGENDA

(Pg. 615) Budget

• (Pg. 615) Reduce the agencies’ budgets to the low end of the historical average. The Trump Administration’s FY 2020 request, $10.9 billion, would provide a workable target for spending reductions for DOL, for example.
  • Whatever is necessary for increasing policing of immigrants and union members will be provided.
• (Pg. 615) Spending reductions should occur primarily in the Employment and Training Administration (ETA).
  • See above.
• (Pg. 615) Focus health and safety inspections on egregious offenders, as other inspections are often abused and usurp state and local government prerogatives.
  • There is no problem here for these oligarch/corporate lickspittles. “OSHA and its state counterparts relying on fewer than 1,850 inspectors to monitor about 8 million workplaces, it would take federal officials 145 years to inspect each job site once, union researchers estimate. The aim of the list is to let OSHA’s limited staff zero in on some of the worst offenders…with about 4,800 workplace fatalities a year nationally, putting every company with a death on the severe violator list would overwhelm OSHA and defeat the goal of tougher enforcement for a subset of the worst offenders. For that reason, the death of a worker will put a company on the list only if the circumstances are particularly flagrant or reflect a pattern of reckless conduct. In 2015 only one out of every roughly 200 employers with an on-the-job fatality landed on the list.”
  • Instead of increasing the budget for more inspectors, they want the public to believe that their clients are overwhelmed. “The agency lacks the authority to shut down dangerous workplaces and its fines generally remain modest despite an increase that took effect in August.”

(Pg. 615) Personnel

Update video from Project on Government Oversight (POGO) on “Schedule F” threats.

• (Pg. 615) Maximize hiring of political appointees.
  • This is the Schedule F clean-out of merit-based civil servants that Trump tried to effect at the end of his term. At least 50,000 workers with proven expertise would be replaced with political lackeys responsible only to Trump’s whims, a revival of the corrupt spoils system that was replaced with the 1883 Pendletoon Act. “Other former Trump officials’ comments and actions led one professor who studies public administration to conclude that the 50,000 figure “is probably a floor rather than a ceiling.” 
    •  “A recent article published in the journal Public Administration that reviewed 96 different studies on the relationship between meritocracy and government performance found that “Impartiality and professionalism are consistently related to positive performance outcomes, higher public trust and confidence, and lower levels of corruption” whereas “Politicization was negatively related to government performance, employee work attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction, organizational commitment), and impartial administration, and positively related to corruption.”
• (Pg. 615) Appoint new EEOC and NLRB general counsels on Day One.

• con’t…
  • These are the people that a new Trump administration would put in place.
    • Biden replaced Peter Robb the Trump’s NLRB General Counsel on the first day. “Before becoming the GC, Robb had spent his legal career as an aggressive anti-union management lawyer. Among his accomplishments were aiding in the defeat of the Air Traffic Controllers (PATCO) strike under President Reagan. His success in crushing that strike raised the threat of permanent replacement for all striking workers, a threat still felt to this day. Robb was appointed to the position of GC by Donald Trump in 2017. Like most Trump appointees, he set out to undermine (some might say destroy) the agency he was appointed to help lead.“
    • Biden then fired fired Sharon Gustafson, general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, who had refused to step down on Inauguration Day, as was traditional. Though the EEOC is charged with defending religious freedom, she “took a narrower view of the issue, focusing on the rights of Christians at the expense of all others. Finally, it is no secret that Gustafson was an ineffective general counsel who sought to curtail her agency’s litigation against both LGBTQ discrimination and systemic racism. Career attorneys at the EEOC told Slate that her removal is a necessary step toward restoring the agency’s mission, badly damaged by Trump appointees, of safeguarding civil rights for all.”
• (Pg. 615) Implement a hiring freeze for career officials.
  • This is a repeat of what Trump did at the beginning of his first term.

(Pg. 615) Office of Compliance Initiatives

(dol.gov) “The Office of Compliance Initiatives promotes greater understanding of federal labor laws and regulations to prevent violations and protect Americans’ wages, workplace safety and health, retirement security, and other rights and benefits. As part of its mission, OCI aims to expand, strengthen, and innovate the U.S. Department of Labor’s outreach to workers, employers, and the regulated community. OCI works with the Department’s agencies to enhance targeted outreach and communication strategies, and ensure their activities are effective.“

• (Pg. 615) DOL should fully staff the Office of Compliance Initiatives (OCI), which was reopened by the Trump Administration after the Obama Administration closed its predecessor down.
  • This is an office that “closed up the barn after the horses were gone.” Trump and his minions:
    • Rolled back a rule that required employers to keep accurate records of workplace injuries and illnesses
    • Delayed a rule requiring employers submit injury and illness records electronically to OSHA
    • Delayed a rule protecting workers from exposure to harmful silica dust
    • Rolled back protections for workers exposed to beryllium
    • Proposed to weaken the inspection rule for metal and nonmetal mines
    • Considered a proposal to increase poultry line speeds, endangering workers
    • Proposed to weaken protections for farmworkers
    • Proposed to make it legal for employers to take workers’ hard-earned tips
    • Took money out of workers’ pockets by weakening the overtime rule
    • Rolled back rules that made it easier for workers to save for retirement
    • Delayed a rule providing protections for retirement savers
    • Rolled back a rule ensuring that unemployment workers can access earned benefits
    • Put the EEO-1 pay data rule on hold
    • Proposed to roll back an SEC rule that requires disclosure of CEO-to-employee pay ratios
    • Rolled back a transparency rule that would allow workers to know when their employer has hired outside anti-union consultants during a union election.
    • Rolled back rules to modify and streamline union elections
    • Rollied back the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule
  • What did Obama do that made them so mad?
    • He signed EO 13665, “barring any federal contractor from discharging or discriminating against an employee who has discussed, inquired about, or disclosed the compensation of another employer or job applicant. Executive Order 13665 furthers the goal of ensuring pay equality by facilitating wage disclosure and transparency and furnishing workers with the ability to more easily identify and contest unlawful pay and compensation disparities.”
    • He signed EO 13672, “prohibiting federal contractors and subcontractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and adding both to the list of protected categories enumerated in Executive Order 11246. The Obama administration also overhauled the regulations for Section 503 and VEVRAA to add, among other things, a disability utilization goal, a VEVRAA hiring benchmark, and strengthened affirmative action requirements.”
      • In 2017, then Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) chairwoman Jenny Yang stated that, “Pay discrimination goes undetected because of a lack of accurate information about what people are paid.”
        • To address this issue, the Obama administration instructed employers to report information about employees pay, gender, race and ethnicity. But last month, the White House suspended this initiative indefinitely.
        • Trump supporters celebrated the decision, saying that it eliminates an undue burden placed on employers. Workers rights groups, on the other hand, said that the Trump administration had “surrendered to corporate special interests” and the National Women’s Law Center said, “Make no mistake — it’s an all-out attack on equal pay.”

(Pg. 615) Improve Visa-Related Labor-Market Monitoring

• (Pg. 616) OFLC should be moved out of ETA and made directly accountable to the Secretary with a politically accountable Director.

Forget slogans. Here are the actual, awful policy proposals.

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