Heritage Foundation's
Project 2025

Chapter 18 - Department of Labor

• Eliminate racial classifications and critical race theory trainings in employment
• Remove EEO-1 data collection on race/ethnicity
• Eliminate disparate impact liability for discrimination claims
• Rescind OFCCP (Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs)
• Restrict application of Bostock v. Clayton County to hiring/firing contexts
• Withdraw unlawful "notices" and "guidances" related to sex discrimination
• Rescind regulations prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, etc.
• Require equal or greater benefits for pro-life support for mothers compared to abortion benefits
• Clarify that ERISA doesn't preempt states' power to restrict abortion-related benefits
• Provide robust protections for religious employers
• Clarify Title VII's religious organization exemptions
• Reform EEOC practices, including affirming decision-making via majority vote of Commissioners
• Allow workers to accumulate paid time off instead of receiving overtime pay
• Incentivize on-site childcare
• Equalize retirement savings access across married households
• Establish an Assistant Commissioner for Family Statistics within the Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Require overtime pay for Sunday work (with religious exemptions)
• Clarify overtime rules for telework
• Return to 2019 and 2021 independent contractor rules
• Establish a bright-line test for employee vs. independent contractor status
• Return to long-standing approach to defining joint employers
• Maintain overtime threshold at Trump-era levels
• Reinstitute the PRO Good Guidance rule
• Exempt small entities from regulations where possible
• Implement an industry-recognized apprenticeship program
• Amend hazard-order regulations to allow teenage workers in more dangerous jobs with training and parental consent
• Create an employer grant for on-the-job training
• Adopt skills-based hiring standards for federal contractors
• Prohibit BA requirements in private sector job descriptions (with exceptions)
• Streamline and reform federal workforce development programs
• Reform the Unemployment Insurance program
• Pass the Teamwork for Employees and Managers (TEAM) Act
• Eliminate the contract bar rule for union decertification
• Amend the NLRA to allow collective bargaining to treat national employment laws as negotiable defaults
• Cap and phase down H-2A and H-2B visa programs
• Mandate high percentages of U.S. citizen employees for federal contractors
• Allow employers to prefer hiring U.S. citizens
• Focus ILAB investigations on foreign labor violations that damage American workers' earning power
• Reduce labor agencies' budgets
• Maximize hiring of political appointees in labor agencies
• Implement a hiring freeze for career officials
• Fully staff the Office of Compliance Initiatives
• Move the Office of Foreign Labor Certification out of the Employment and Training Administration
• Approve non-public organizations as unemployment insurance administrators
• Offer waivers from federal labor laws to states and local governments
• Ensure interstate compacts for occupational license recognition don't require additional qualifications
• Remove ESG considerations from ERISA
• Prohibit investment of the Thrift Savings Plan in China
• Require public pension funds to disclose fair market value of assets and liabilities
• Reform multiemployer pension plans
• Increase variable rate premiums on underfunding for PBGC
• Provide clear regulations for ESOP valuation and fiduciary conduct