Let the population be warned: the plan written up by those who want to lead our country has a raft of anti-labor, anti-union, even un-American ideas within it.
Let’s start this essay with a little reminder about what a strong labor force does for all of us.
A simple analysis of the history of this country reveals a very clear pattern. When workers—that is, the middle class—are protected and treated fairly the entire nation is lifted to opportunity and prosperity.
Witness the decades from World War II to 1980 when unions were at their most influential in the US. With their hard-earned collective representation in negotiations with management over issues like working conditions, pay, and benefits, the middle class saw unprecedented changes in their jobs and in their lives. The income gap between the top 10% and the lower 90% was at its most equal measure. Life expectancy dramatically increased and child labor was ended. More Americans bought homes and sent their kids to college than ever before.
And with its increased tax base from a multitude of hard-working wage earners, America also saw the benefits of labor’s rise. We built more public schools than ever. We completed a vast highway system that connects us. We won the space race.
Labor’s gains are the reason for what is known as America’s Golden Age.
Management’s POV
But these gains have always been anathema to the powerful and the wealthy who see the above benefits as something they have unwilfully paid for, as something that’s somehow been taken away from them. And from the beginning they have sought to undercut Labor’s strength and return us to a time when the rich held the vast majority of America’s wealth and made the rules about how we work.
And they’ve been very successful in that undoing. In 26 US states so-called Right to Work laws have crippled labor’s influence and made unionization nearly illegal. It’s no coincidence that in those Right to Work states workers earn lower wages, experience more illness, and live shorter lives than in states where unions are welcome and empowered. And the income gap between the working class and the wealthy in this country has returned to the chasm it was in the gilded age of the “robber barons.”
Now comes the 900-page screed called “Project 2025” written by people adjacent to and subservient to the powerful. This document outlines their plans for guiding the nation into the future, and what it has to say about Labor is a warning to us all. Today we’ll focus on what they’re trying to do to overtime pay.
An incipient plan like Project 2025 seeks to undo all of Labor's hard-earned gains. Our fight for the rights of working people must rage on.
The Battle Plan Against Overtime Pay
The document contains recommendations that will cut the pay of millions of workers by making overtime pay available to fewer people. Note: many working class Americans rely on overtime pay to make ends meet. The proposal would disregard the single work-week regular-pay ceiling of 40 hours and force employers to take a two-week view. Overtime will only be paid to a worker when that worker has logged more than 80 hours over a two-week period. So if they work 60 hours one week and 20 the next, that worker won’t qualify for any overtime pay, even though they worked 60 hours in one week.
It's not hard to imagine a manager working his crew upwards of 50 hours in a week to meet a tight product deadline, then after meeting that deadline being able to cut back hours in the ensuing week. Management meets their order and the stressed workers get no overtime for the trouble.
The “Time-Off-Instead-of-Pay” Sham
In a further attack on overtime pay, Project 2025 finds ways to encourage workers who qualify for overtime pay to choose to receive compensatory time-off rather than time-and-a-half pay. The document says workers will “enjoy more time with their families.” But worker advocates know what’s behind this idea. It’s not increased family time. The employers will no doubt pressure workers to take the comp time instead of the pay and then tell those workers when they can or can’t take it.
David Weil, the labor department’s former wage and hour director, confirms this fear. He said, “Unfortunately, in too many work settings, workers would be pressured into taking the accumulated time option and then have trouble using that time when they chose to do so,” he said.
All of these measures are aimed at taking money and power away from workers and putting both those assets in the pockets of management.
Labor: There is No Quit
The ill-conceived Project 2025 also takes on government employee unions such as police, firefighters and teachers – by challenging Congress to outlaw all public sector unions. Project 2025 would undermine general unions by banning card checks, which unions use to help workers organize (when a union gets a majority of workers to sign a pro-union card, they have leverage to convince employers to grant union recognition and bargain). It also seeks to make it easier for employers to exploit child labor. We’ll take on those issues in future posts.
In New York City’s construction industry, a minority of workers are protected by unions which have negotiated for them to get fair pay, safe work conditions, and health benefits. But an incipient plan like Project 2025 seeks to undo all of that. Our fight for the rights of working people must rage on.
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