Since his inauguration, Trump has followed Project 2025’s union busting playbook. According to a Center for American Progress analysis of federal employment data, the Trump administration ended collective bargaining rights for more than 1 million American workers via an Executive Order issued on March 27, 2025 and a prior decision to end collective bargaining for 45,000 workers at the Transportation Security Administration.
Georgetown University labor historian Joseph McCartin called this order “by far the largest single action of union-busting in American history.”
Trump rolled back an Executive Order requiring federal contractors to recognize existing unions in successor contracts and offer jobs to their predecessors’ employees before hiring new workers.
On March 14, 2025, Trump issued an Executive Order undoing a Biden-era regulation that raised the minimum wage for private sector workers on federal contracts to $17.75 per hour. Because of Trump’s new order, corporations working on government contracts are now free to cut wages for hundreds of thousands of workers.
The Trump administration also repealed an order directing agencies to prioritize “high road” employers—i.e., employers that agree to pay workers the prevailing wage and provide benefits like paid leave and health insurance—in awarding federal contracts. Trump also eliminated federal incentives for programs that provide workers on federal projects with training opportunities for higher-wage skilled trade occupations.
Trump fired nearly two-thirds of the staff (roughly 870 employees) at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), an agency created to ensure safe and healthy working conditions.
The Trump administration has effectively shut down the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by firing one of its members.
On January 27, 2025, Trump fired Gwynne Wilcox, Chair of the Board and one of its three remaining members. As a result, the NLRB lacks a quorum.
On May 22, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily allowed her firing to stand, with all three liberal justices offering a dissenting opinion.
On January 27, Trump also fired Jennifer Abruzzo, the NLRB’s General Counsel. The General Counsel sets priorities for the NLRB. Since President Joe Biden appointed her in 2021, Abruzzo implemented dozens of policies that strengthen workers’ right to organize. Under Abruzzo’s direction, the NLRB restored the “equality principle” that puts union stewards on equal footing with management and reaffirmed workers’ rights to wear union insignia like buttons and t-shirts at work. Under Abruzzo, the NLRB also issued the landmark decision in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC, 372 NLRB No. 130 (2023) which made it easier to organize a union.
Under Abruzzo, the NLRB took on misclassification of independent contractors and banned coercive captive audience meetings by management, provided stronger remedies for workers who lost their jobs after being fired for organizing; limited the use of monitoring technologies, including artificial intelligence, to spy on workers, and prohibited noncompete agreements.
After terminating Abruzzo, President Trump appointed William B. Cowen as Acting General Counsel. On February 14, 2025. Cowen issued a memo rescinding 18 memoranda issued by Abruzzo including decisions instructing NLRB regions to seek expansive remedies in unfair labor practice (ULP) cases and settlement agreements; classifying student-athletes as “employees” under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA); asserting that noncompete clauses and “stay-or-pay” provisions requiring workers to stay on the job for a certain period of time or pay penalties violate the NLRA; permitting mail-in ballot elections during the COVID-19 pandemic; and more. Cowen also rescinded 13 additional decisions pending further guidance, including the Board’s union recognition standard in Cemex.
On March 25, 2025, Trump nominated as Abruzzo’s permanent replacement, Crystal Casey, a partner at Morgan Lewis, a law firm that has a history of helping corporations bust unions and is one of the most powerful management-side law firms in the country. A current Morgan Lewis lawsuit seeks to declare the NLRB unconstitutional. The law firm has been involved in some of the most prominent labor battles in America from the 1981 air traffic controllers strike to efforts by McDonald’s to resist the Fight for $15. One of Morgan Lewis’s biggest current clients is Amazon.
By nominating Carey as the NLRB general counsel, President Trump has ensured that the NLRB will rule on the side of employers over workers and that Trump will continue to follow the Project 2025 union busting playbook in the coming years.
Ruth Silver Taube is the Supervising Attorney of the Workers’ Rights Practice at the Katharine & George Alexander Community Law Center at Santa Clara University School of Law, Coordinator of the Santa Clara County Wage Theft Coalition, Legal Services Provider Co-Chair of the South Bay Coalition to End Human Trafficking, a delegate to the Santa Clara County’s Human Trafficking Commission, and the Supervising Attorney of the Santa Clara County Office of Labor Standards Legal Advice Line. Before law school, she was a journeyman machinist, President of International Association of Machinists Local 547, and Senior Field Representative for SEIU Local 535. She previously taught at Njala University in Sierra Leone with CUSO, the Canadian Peace Corps.
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