The Guardian reports:

Donald Trump proclaimed he was for “all the forgotten men and women”, in his acceptance speech at the Republican convention. His vice-presidential pick JD Vance consistently portrays himself as a pro-worker populist. But an analysis of the labor chapter of Project 2025 – an ambitious rightwing plan to guide the next Republican presidency – found it has little to offer them.

Project 2025’s labor section proposes hardly anything to improve workers’ wages and working conditions. It is, however, chock full of recommendations that would boost corporate profits, undercut labor unions and advance the rightwing culture war.

Project 2025 contains several recommendations that would, when taken together, cut the pay of millions of workers, especially by making overtime pay available to fewer workers, even though many Americans rely on overtime pay to make ends meet. This so-called “Presidential Transition Project” shows outright hostility toward government employee unions – whether police unions, firefighters’ unions or teachers’ unions – saying that Congress should consider abolishing all public sector unions. Project 2025 would further undermine unions by recommending a ban on the use of card check, one of labor’s most effective tools to organize workers. Once a union gets a majority of employees at a workplace to sign pro-union cards, unions often point to this majority support to persuade employers to grant union recognition and bargain.

Project 2025 was undertaken by the Heritage Foundation and was written by numerous Trump allies, many of whom served in his administration and many of whom are likely to serve under him again if he wins in November, Trump has distanced himself from the project’s hard-right proposals, arguing, contradictorily, that he knows nothing about the project while adding that he disagrees with some of its proposals. Political analysts predict that if Trump is elected, his administration will pursue many of Project 2025’s policies.

Worker advocates have vigorously condemned Project 2025. Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said: “For 900 pages, Trump’s Project 2025 playbook dives into excruciating detail on how a Trump-Vance administration will roll back workers’ rights, curbing the right to organize, eliminating overtime pay laws, gutting health and safety protections and protections against child labor.”

The 37-page labor chapter contains recommendation after recommendation designed to make corporations and rightwing ideologues happy. With many employers complaining that today’s low jobless rate makes it hard to find enough workers, Project 2025 recommends making it easier for 16- and 17-year-olds to work in dangerous jobs – jobs that federal law currently makes off-limits to workers under the age of 18. [Continue reading…]