6 labor and employment issues that are in flux, according to law firm Littler

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The start of President Donald Trump’s second presidency has already included “dramatic adjustments” in labor and employment coverage and legislation — and extra are anticipated, Littler’s Office Coverage Institute mentioned in its 2025 Labor Day Report, launched final week.

“In lower than 9 months, the brand new administration has reworked greater than six many years of labor and employment coverage, and there’s no indication that the tempo will gradual. As key oversight and enforcement company positions are crammed, we anticipate additional upheaval,” Shannon Meade, WPI’s govt director, and WPI co-chairs Alex MacDonald and Jim Paretti mentioned in a joint assertion.

Among the adjustments profit employers, however “that’s not common,” the authors mentioned. Adjustments on the federal degree are also being counteracted by “so-called ‘blue states’” passing legal guidelines in response that both give workers extra office protections or attempt to tip the size again in favor of staff, Littler mentioned.

Littler recognized the next developments:

Federal “unbiased” businesses are in query

Days after taking workplace, Trump fired quite a lot of officers on the U.S. Equal Employment Alternative Fee and Nationwide Labor Relations Board, amongst different unbiased businesses.

A number of of these officers have filed lawsuits alleging illegal termination and challenging the president’s authority to remove federal agency leaders. The Trump administration, for its half, has questioned the constitutionality of Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a 90-year-old U.S. Supreme Court docket choice that reaffirmed Congress’ energy to create unbiased boards and commissions and denied the president the power to take away members of these businesses at will.

In the meantime, the firings have left each EEOC and NLRB without a quorum, limiting what the businesses are permitted to do.

Littler recommends employers watch each for the confirmations of company nominees and for the Supreme Court docket’s rulings.

“Finally, the Court docket should resolve whether or not these removals had been lawful. And in the event that they had been, ‘unbiased’ businesses could also be a factor of the previous. As an alternative of exercising unbiased ‘experience,’ they could merely observe the coverage priorities of the incumbent president,” the authors mentioned.

Union membership drops, however legislators contemplate worker-friendly legal guidelines

Whereas unions maintain more organizing efforts and elections, their membership continues to fall, and union density dropped to the bottom ranges on file in fiscal yr 2024, Littler mentioned.

On the similar time, extra states have handed legal guidelines to ban or limit employer-sponsored conferences, referred to as “captive viewers” conferences, the report mentioned. To date, 13 states have handed laws, together with most lately Rhode Island.

The authors warned that these legal guidelines “limit employers’ capacity to share their views and specific themselves freely within the office” and “additionally place them at a major drawback when dealing with a quickly creating unionization marketing campaign.”

On the federal degree, lawmakers are contemplating the Faster Labor Contracts Act, which was proposed within the spring to hurry up labor-management negotiations, Littler mentioned.

“The invoice is usually supported by Democrats and is strongly opposed by the enterprise group, not solely as a result of it hurries up the method of collective bargaining, however as a result of the invoice would for the primary time enable outsiders to compel employers to comply with particular bargaining agreements,” the authors mentioned.

Trump administration pushes to remove range, fairness and inclusion packages

Trump has focused DEI packages and has instructed “federal businesses all through the federal government to focus their efforts on eliminating DEI packages as aggressively as potential,” Littler mentioned.

“How these efforts fare within the courts, how aggressively the administration continues to press the problem, and what numerous federal authorities businesses do to advance this agenda — and what states do in response — all stay to be seen,” the report mentioned.

Nonetheless, given how high-profile DEI instances have been, the authors mentioned that “employers in all sectors that keep DEI initiatives are suggested to seek the advice of with counsel and keep present on developments.”

Adjustments to time beyond regulation and employee classification

Within the report, Littler questioned what strategy the Trump administration would take relating to the white-collar time beyond regulation threshold, which was raised by a Biden administration rule in 2024 and later vacated by a federal judge.

“The query now’s whether or not the second Trump administration will abandon the attraction and permit the 2019 rule to stay in impact, or will it revisit and try to extend that 2019 threshold?”

On Sept. 4, days after the report was issued, the U.S. Division of Labor confirmed that it intends to revisit its overtime regulations below the Honest Labor Requirements Act. DOL didn’t give a timeline for motion however mentioned it was reviewing the Biden administration’s 2024 time beyond regulation rule and is “figuring out tips on how to proceed.” The administration has already appealed one federal court docket choice that vacated the 2024 rule to the fifth U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals.

Littler additionally predicted that the federal authorities appeared “able to loosen classification guidelines to permit extra staff to be labeled as [independent] contractors.” DOL on Sept. 4 confirmed that it anticipated to publish up to date unbiased contractor rulemaking by the tip of the month.

Blue states are responding, Littler mentioned, by adopting requirements “extra prone to end in conventional worker standing.”

Immigration enforcement is a precedence

The Trump administration’s immigration-related coverage adjustments — and associated enforcement actions — imply employers ought to count on extra I-9 audits and office raids, Littler mentioned.

“Tighter enforcement measures would require better vigilance from human useful resource departments in finishing and sustaining employment authorization documentation for workers. On the similar time, employers might face better problem hiring expertise exterior the USA given stricter interpretations of immigration processing guidelines and procedures,” the authors mentioned.

Wells Fargo economists mentioned in a June report that elevated immigration “went a good distance towards assuaging … historic labor shortfalls,” particularly through the COVID-19 pandemic. Likewise, staffing issues which have lengthy troubled the long-term care trade are being exacerbated by immigration changes, and the development trade expects to see comparable labor challenges.

Synthetic intelligence rules are patchwork

The brand new administration has emphasised “deregulation and technological competitiveness” on the subject of AI, a departure from the Biden administration, the report mentioned. In response, states and localities are taking “the lead in shaping AI-related employment legislation” to fight potential algorithmic bias, transparency and employee surveillance.

“For employers, this evolving patchwork of regulations raises essential questions on threat, accountability, and compliance within the age of AI,” the authors mentioned.

For that motive, employers ought to be sure their AI ethics policies are versatile and evolving, a CEO of an AI software program firm lately advised HR Dive.

“A static AI coverage will probably be outdated earlier than the ink dries,” he mentioned. “Deal with it like a dwelling playbook that evolves with the tech, the rules, and the wants of your workforce.”

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