Project 2025 is a federal policy blueprint for a radical restructuring of the executive branch authored and published by former Trump administration officials in partnership with The Heritage Foundation, a longstanding conservative think tank that led the opposition to the legislation to protect UMWA retiree’s health care and pensions in 2017 and 2019.
One of the aspects of Project 2025 would directly affect the UMWA and the entire labor movement, by making it illegal for employers to voluntarily recognize unions even if they wanted to.
When a majority of workers sign cards or a petition expressing their willingness to join a union, employers have the option to voluntarily recognize the union instead of requiring a secret ballot election. But Project 2025 states that “Congress should discard card check as the basis of union recognition and mandate the secret ballot exclusively”, which would severely harm union organizing and weaken workers’ collective bargaining power.
The agenda also sets forth a plan allowing employers to take away unions mid-contract. Currently, when a union reaches a collective bargaining agreement, workers are barred from holding a vote to “decertify” the election for up to three years except for limited windows of time. Project 2025 would eliminate the contract bar rule, allowing employers to use union-busting tactics to decertify a union mid-contract.
PROJECT 2025 TARGETS WORKING FAMILIES
• Allows states to gut national overtime and minimum wage laws
• Allows states to ban labor unions
• Allows employers to stop paying overtime
• Repeals labor and wage protections for workers on Federal projects
• Restricts unemployment insurance
• Privatizes unemployment insurance programs
• Creates loopholes that allow businesses to put worker safety at risk
• Eliminates child labor protections
• Increases Medicare Part D prescription drug prices
• Slashes funding for Medicaid
• Eliminates the Affordable Care Act
• Taxes worker benefits
“What Project 25 proposes is unimaginable; banning public sector unions, doing away with civil service protections, putting a stop to overtime pay, gutting child labor laws, banning employers from voluntarily recognizing unions, and the list goes on and on,” said Sanson.
“The prospect of any of these ideas becoming our federal government policy should give everyone pause. Ask yourself if any of these backwards steps would benefit your family, friends, loved ones or your union brothers and sisters. We want to make it clear that we cannot in good conscious support Project 2025. We urge our membership to research and educate yourselves. Ask where the candidates are on Project 2025 before heading out to the polls in November. We need to elect people who are on our side.”
