Project 2025's War on Union Organizing: Card Check Bans, Contract Bars, and the Assault on Worker Voice
Project 2025 calls for Congress to ban card check recognition, eliminate the NLRB contract bar rule, and amend the NLRA to allow collective bargaining to waive core worker protections. These proposals would make it exponentially harder for workers to form unions, easier for employers to decertify them, and would transform federal labor law from a floor of protections into a ceiling of negotiable defaults.
The right to form a union is not a privilege — it's a bedrock civil right protected by the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. But Project 2025 proposes to gut that right by banning card check recognition, the method by which workers can form a union by signing authorization cards showing majority support. Under current law, card check recognition is voluntary: an employer can choose to accept the cards or demand a secret-ballot election. Project 2025 would force an election every time, even when a clear majority has already expressed its will. This isn't about protecting democracy — it's about giving employers more time and opportunity to run anti-union campaigns that are proven to chill worker organizing.
Beyond the card check ban, Project 2025 targets the contract bar rule, which currently protects union contracts from decertification challenges for up to three years at a time. Eliminating this rule would allow employers and anti-union workers to file decertification petitions immediately after a contract is signed, plunging union workplaces into perpetual organizing cycles. The project even proposes amending the NLRA to allow collective bargaining to waive national standards like overtime pay under the FLSA or safety protections under the OSH Act. This would transform the FLSA's 40-hour overtime threshold from a non-negotiable floor into a bargaining chip — a concession a union might trade for predictable scheduling, effectively legalizing the relaxation of core worker protections.
As of this writing, none of these legislative proposals have been enacted. The card check ban and contract bar elimination remain on paper; the NLRA amendment has not been introduced. But partial steps are in motion: the OLMS rule to investigate union malfeasance without a formal complaint was proposed in May 2025, and executive orders ending mandatory Project Labor Agreements on federal projects were issued in early 2025. The Davis-Bacon Repeal Act was introduced in May 2026 but has not passed. These early attacks on prevailing wages and project labor agreements signal what a full Project 2025 agenda would mean for union construction workers — lower wages, fewer protections, and more precarity. The fight now is to block the legislative assaults and reverse the executive actions already in place before the deeper attacks on the right to organize begin.
The humanitarian alternative
Congress and the administration should reaffirm and strengthen Davis-Bacon prevailing wage protections and Project Labor Agreement requirements on all federally funded transportation projects. This should include expanding PLAs as a standard tool on large-scale transit and rail projects to ensure reliable scheduling, cost predictability, and access to a skilled workforce. Instead of weakening union organizing, the DOT should partner with DOL to expand registered apprenticeship programs and create direct pathways for disadvantaged workers into high-quality construction careers on infrastructure projects. Rejecting the card-check ban and defending the NLRB's contract bar rule are essential to maintaining worker voice and safety.
Rollback path — how this gets undone
This action has already been implemented. These are the concrete levers that could reverse it.
- Defeat the Davis-Bacon Repeal Act in Congress Congressional allies must block passage of the repeal act and mobilize committee opposition to prevent any legislative weakening of prevailing wage requirements.
- Rescind executive orders ending mandatory PLAs A future presidential administration can revoke or replace EOs that restrict PLAs on federal construction, restoring procurement guidance that prioritizes quality and worker standards.
- Rescind or delay finalized OLMS investigation rule A future DOL can rescind the proposed OLMS rule expanding investigation authority without a complaint, or Congress can pass a Congressional Review Act disapproval resolution if the rule is finalized before a certain date.
- Defeat legislation codifying the card-check ban and contract bar elimination Defeat any bills that would ban card-check recognition or eliminate the NLRB's contract bar rule through filibuster or committee action in the Senate.
- Legislatively codify Davis-Bacon and PLA requirements Congress can pass new legislation, such as a 'Infrastructure Worker Standards Act,' that would statutorily mandate prevailing wages and PLAs on all major federally assisted transit and highway projects.
Reversing it is step one. The forward agenda — what we build so it can’t recur — is in Answers to this entry →
Grounded in
- Project 2025: The Department of Labor - The Fulcrum
- Labor Under Fire: Project 2025 Unfolding - UWUA
- Project 2025's Plan To Gut Checks and Balances Harms American Workers - American Progress
- Project 2025 Is Not Pro-Worker or Pro-Union - The Century Foundation
- About OLMS - U.S. Department of Labor
- Burlison, Lee Introduce Davis-Bacon Repeal Act to Cut Federal Construction Costs
- Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act - Congressional Budget Office
- Table of Contents: How Project 2025 Harms Workers - LIUNA Chicago
Original source — excerpted
project2025 Project 2025 ch. 19: Department of Transportation (pp 635-637)"— 602 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise Office of Labor-Management Standards Initiative. Currently, the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) may investigate potential employer mal - feasance with regard to union funds in the absence of any complaint by a worker or union but may not do the same with regard to potential union malfeasance. If OLMS has evidence that a union may be violating the law based on information available to the agency (such as annual financial disclosure reports, information developed during an audit of a union’s books and records, or information obtained from other government agencies) it should be permitted to open an investigation. It should have the same enforcement tools available for both employers and unions. l Revise investigation standards. The Office of Labor-Management Standards should revise its investigation standards to authorize investigations without receiving a formal complaint. Persuader Rule. During the Obama Administration, DOL created significant regulatory burdens for employers with respect to the advice that employers receive about union activity. As a general matter, employers who hire lawyers or oth…"