by Dr. Arcelita Imasa
I’ve been hearing a lot about Project 2025 concerning the upcoming national elections. What is it, and what does it mean for everyday workers like me and our families?
– Reader
Dear Reader,
We are so glad you asked.
The Hawai’i Workers Center is a non-partisan organization whose mission is to educate, organize, and advocate for policies that improve and uplift the well-being of working families, especially lower-wage workers.
Thus, we think the labor proposals in Project 2025 need a closer look.
Project 2025 is an almost 900-page document written by the conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation. Its purpose is to be the plan that former President Trump would implement, starting on day one, if he were to be reelected.
Recently Trump has tried to distance himself from the largely unpopular, extreme set of policy proposals.
However, at least 140 people who worked for him were involved in writing the Project 2025 plan, and his vice-presidential pick, JD Vance wrote a foreword for the Plan’s upcoming book.
Trump has also said that the Heritage Foundation “was going to lay the groundwork and the details plans for exactly what (we) will do.”
The Hawaii Workers Center encourages everyone to do their own research on these matters, and please also check our website for policies the Hawaii Workers Center supports to uplift working families.
With that said, the bottom line is Hawaii Workers Center is very concerned that the proposals within Project 2025 would reduce or eliminate many bedrock protections for most workers, limit their bargaining power, and set many workers back in terms of wages and workplace safety. Here are a few key examples taken directly from the Plan.
Project 2025, if enacted, would:
– Significantly reduce the budget of the Department of Labor, the agency that oversees wages, hours, worker safety, etc. The same agency that recently investigated the conditions of Max’s of Manila workers and awarded them years of back wages owed to them (see our column Tell Us More About Wage Theft, July 12, 2024 edition). Without enough manpower and financial resources, the Department of Labor can’t carry out its mission to enforce workers’ rights.
– Restrict access to overtime pay for work beyond 40 hours in a workweek.
– Weaken and roll back child labor law protections.
– Limit Occupational Health and Safety investigations and protections.
– Seriously limit a worker’s rights to free speech.
– Eliminate public sector unions.
– Remove laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
– Allow states to waive some bedrock labor standards such as a 40-hour workweek.
– Make it much harder for workers to win union recognition.
Having seen the plans above that Project 2025 would do, what do you think now? In the Hawaii Workers Center’s nonpartisan opinion, Project 2025 is bad for workers!
Project 2025 pretty much allows corporations to do whatever they please, and it rolls back years of hard-fought workers’ rights and leaves workers with weak or no federal agencies to enforce those rights.
And while Project 2025 states it wants to make work more “family-friendly,” nowhere in its proposals does it mention affordable childcare or covering all workers with family and medical leave or paid leave.
Nor does it support an expanded child tax credit or other policies that truly help families balance work and family and put more dollars in their pockets.
Hawai’i Workers Center is fighting to advance these policies.
Sincerely,
Hawa’i Workers Center
DR. ARCELITA IMASA is a practicing family physician and the secretary of the Hawaii Workers Center’s Executive Committee of the Board. She grew up in the Philippines before migrating to Hawaii with her family more than a decade ago.
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