What Is Project 2025?

Project 2025 is a 920-page document by Donald Trump and his allies, including billionaires and corporate donors, that lays out the agenda for a potential second Trump Administration: gut checks and balances, strip away our rights and freedoms, and give massive tax breaks to the wealthy and big corporations while working people foot the bill.

Here are the toplines:

Tax breaks for billionaires
Raising taxes for working people
Rolling back worker protections
Eliminating social security and medicaid

It's the roadmap for a potential second Trump Administration.

Jump to:

What does it mean for unions and working people?

The policies laid out in Project 2025 would drive up costs, put people out of work, endanger people’s lives, make it tougher for workers to organize and join unions, members to win gains in our next contracts and stack the deck in favor of CEOs.

Some of their main goals when it comes to workers and unions:

Get rid of public sector unions
Roll back child labor laws and protections for child workers
Allow states to ban unions

Our Rights at Work

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) establishes national minimum wage and overtime laws, while the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) protects our right to join unions. Project 2025 would

Lets states ban unions: Trump's Project 2025 urges Congress to pass legislation that would let states and local governments seek waivers from federal labor laws like the FLSA and the NLRA - allowing states to strip us of our rights to a union and roll back everything we've worked for.
Allows Employers stop paying overtime: The Trump Project 2025 agenda wants to change the overtime rules in the FLSA to allow employers to compensate overtime with paid time off instead of overtime pay, putting less money in our pockets. Project 2025 would also change the way that overtime is calculated to allow employers to combine weeks in order to avoid paying overtime.
Rolling back prevailing wage: The Trump plan would repeal the requirements for federally-funded projects to have project labor agreements (PLAs) and pay the prevailing wage in the region, leading to lower pay and more safety risks for workers.
Cuts assistance for workers whose jobs are shipped overseas: During Trump's time as President, he gave away billions of dollars in tax cuts and credits to corporations who outsourced jobs overseas, leading to layoffs across the country - including many of our own CWA members. Project 2025 would make layoffs even more disastrous for workers, slashing money for job training programs that help get folks back to work.

Health & Safety

During Trump's Presidency he worked to weaken the Occupational Safety and Health Association

Allows certain businesses to be exempt from OSHA fines, putting workers at risk with no accountability or incentive to protect workers.
Rolling back child labor laws: Trump's Project 2025 agenda would change the Department of Labor's hazard-order regulations and allow teenagers to work in dangerous occupations, including mines and meatpacking plants.

Organizing

During the Biden/Harris administration, the National Labor Relations Board has reinstated policies designed to speed up the union election process - policies that had been rolled back under Trump. The current NLRB, led by Biden/Harris appointee Jennifer Abruzzo, former Special Counsel to CWA, has also created new paths for workers to organize. The result? In the last 3+ years, unions have been filing petitions to hold elections and winning them at rates not seen in decades, according the NLRB.

Project 2025 would put a stop to all of that.

Making it easier for employers to retaliate against organizers and union leaders: Bosses could discipline or even fire workers for engaging in collective action and organizing.
Creating phony "Company Unions": Employers subvert labor laws by creating their own phony employee organizations with fake employee committees hand-picked by management.
Allowing union-busting to run rampant and be done in secret: The Biden/Harris Administration reinstituded the Persuader Rule, requiring companies to disclose when they hire union-busting consultants. If Trump is allowed to execute his Project 2025 plans, corporations would be allowed to secretly hire union-busting consultants to manipulate and pressure workers who try to form a union.

Healthcare

Increases Prescription Drug Prices: Project 2025 would stop the federal government from negotiating negotiating Medicare Part D drug prices, making those prescriptions more expensive.
Eliminates the Affordable Care Act: Getting rid of the ACA would leave millions of people without healthcare, including many of or members' family members, as well as allow insurance companies to go back to the draconian practice of charging more for pre-existing conditions.
Taxing Worker Benefits: The Trump Administration would set a cap on the tax deductions that employers can claim for benefits they offer workers, incentivizing employers to offer fewer and worse benefits.