07/24/2024
An employment lawyer's take of Project 2025, for those still undecided about how to vote in November.
Project 2025 is an initiative organized by the Heritage Foundation aimed at preparing for a so-called conservative presidential administration after the November election. Its goal is to promote conservative policies and ensure the right personnel are in place to implement those policies from day one of the administration.
Regardless of where you fall in this philosophical political debate, Project 2025 offers a glimpse of what changes to expect in labor and employment laws in a Trump administration.
Project 2025 Employment Law.
Project 2025 proposes the following 5 key changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act:
1. 160-Hour Work Month: Project 2025 would allow employers to define the work week over a period as long as four weeks. This change would enable employers to limit overtime pay to four-week periods in which non-exempt employees work more than 160 hours, instead of a one-week period in which they work more than 40 hours. Thus, if a non-exempt employee works 60 hours in week one, 50 hours in week two, 50 hours in week three, and zero hours in week four, the employee would not be eligible for any overtime pay for that entire four-week period.
2. Comp Time: It would permit non-exempt employees who work more than 40 hours in a work week to choose between receiving overtime pay or accumulating paid time off (i.e., comp time).
3. Sabbath Pay: It would require that employers pay non-exempt employees time and a half for all hours worked on the Sabbath.
4. Child Labor: It would allow teenagers to work in hazardous jobs, with training and parental consent.
5. Remote Work: It would limit overtime pay for non-exempt employees working remotely to those who work more than 40 hours in a week and 10 hours in a specific workday. It would also exclude from the regular rate of pay time spent setting up a home office and would further exclude home offices from OSHA regulations.
Project 2025 proposes 7 key changes to workplace discrimination laws.
1. General Civil Rights Protections: Project 2025 would cut various civil rights protections, including those related to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
2. LGBTQ+ Rights: Project 2025 would roll back protections for LGBTQ+ individuals, including eliminating terms like "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" from federal anti-discrimination laws, except for hiring and firing decisions.
3. Pregnancy Discrimination: Project 2025 would remove from the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act any abortion-related protections.
4 . Religious Exemptions: Project 2025 would implement broad religious exemptions that would allow employers with conservative and religious viewpoints to bypass general nondiscrimination laws. If applied broadly, these exceptions would allow these employers to discriminate based on gender, sexual orientation, and other protected characteristics under the guise of religious beliefs .
5. Data Collection: Project 2025 would ban collection of racial and other demographic data via the Equal Employment Opportunity-1 form.
6. Disparate Impact: Project 2025 would make disparate impact discrimination legal, limiting the scope of our workplace discrimination laws to intentional discrimination only.
7. Affirmative Action: Project 2025 would eliminate the Office of Federal Contract Compliance and end affirmative action for federal contractors and subcontractors.
