Jonathan Berry

Jonathan Berry led the DOL’s regulatory office under Trump, overseeing the development of workplace deregulation rules. Per the AFL-CIO, Berry’s DOL was “catastrophic for workers.” Berry authored Project 2025’s DOL chapter, where he calls for weakening unions, reducing overtime regulations, and allowing corporations more freedom in classifying workers as independent contractors. In private practice as Managing Partner at Boyden Gray PLLC, Berry has been part of unsuccessful efforts to try to overturn the Affordable Care Act in King v. Burwell.

During the first Trump administration, the NLRB “adopted rules that made it easier for large corporations to evade liability for labor violations and to avoid bargaining obligations by relying on smaller intermediary companies—including franchisees, temporary staffing agencies, and labor contractors—to supply [labor].” Trump’s NLRB also made rules that make it harder for workers to unionize by giving anti-union corporations more opportunities to fight workers’ organizing campaigns and reduce the likelihood of union victory.

In his Project 2025 chapter, Berry calls for continuing the work of weakening organized labor:

– Fire the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) general counsel “on Day One,” threatening the NLRB’s ability to protect workers trying to organize for good, middle-class jobs.

– Gut the capacity of the Department of Labor (DOL) to protect workers by calling for state waivers from key labor standards such as the minimum wage, overtime pay, and the right to organize.

– Remove DOL’s hazard-order regulations to allow teenagers to work “inherently dangerous jobs.”

– Weaken overtime pay requirements.

– Rescind labor protections including those “prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics.”

– Work with Congress to “amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to authorize collective bargaining to treat national employment laws and regulations as negotiable defaults.”

Prior to his role at the Department of Labor, Berry served at the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy. In this position, he aided in the confirmations of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and numerous federal judges. Berry was also deeply involved in the Trump administration’s transition team as Chief Counsel.

In private practice, Berry has been part of efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act in King v. Burwell and helped defend former Republican Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell in his corruption case. He also served as a legal advisor to the Romney presidential campaign.

Berry said that the President should have the ability to fire up to 50,000 bureaucrats if they are not aligned with the President’s ideology. He also wrote that Justice Alito, whom he clerked for, is merely a victim of the “media attack machine.” Berry wrote the Department of Labor chapter of Project 2025. His chapter hinted at potential Social Security privatization: “Existing statutory language in the Social Security Act does not prohibit non-public organizations from administering the program.” He also criticized Delaware for increasing its attention to ESG principles in a Wall Street Journal op-ed with former Attorney General William Barr.

This profile has been updated.

Individuals included in the “Supply Chain” risk scenario would have decision-making purview over a regulatory space that greatly influences supply chains in key industries (e.g. agriculture, healthcare, technology, consumer goods), or whose influence on domestic or foreign policy could greatly disrupt aspects of supply chains, including shipping and logistics, trade agreements, and labor availability.