This week President Donald Trump nominated attorney Jonathan Berry to be the next solicitor of the Department of Labor (DOL). Berry worked in the department during the first Trump administration, and he was the sole author of Chapter 18 of Project 2025’s treatise Mandate for Leadership, which contained a set of policy recommendations for the DOL and related agencies (EEOC, NLRB, etc.). With his nomination, we thought it would be helpful to review Berry’s recommended policy changes for the DOL.

What does Chapter 18 say?

Much of Chapter 18 is dedicated to rolling back DEI initiatives, and the current administration has clearly made that a priority during the first three months of 2025. Other changes proposed by Berry include:

1. Overtime changes – Several proposals are focused on using the DOL to collect more data on the “state of the American family” (Mandate, p. 588) and refocus regulations to have an impact on family lives. Examples include allowing non-exempt workers to elect to receive paid time off instead of overtime, incentivizing on-site childcare, forcing employers to pay overtime rates for employees that have to work on Sunday (or Saturday depending on the particular religion), limiting overtime to employees who work remotely unless they work over 10 hours in a specific day, and removing home offices from OSHA regulations.
2. Worker independence – As we reported recently, the DOL will likely rescind the Biden administration’s 2024 independent contractor rule and...

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