Jonathan Berry, the lead author on labor policy for the Project 2025 initiative, is poised to become the solicitor for the Department of Labor, despite his private-sector record focused on rolling back labor protections and limiting workers’ rights. His recent work includes a federal lawsuit aimed at cutting overtime pay for home care workers, as well as efforts to constrain shareholder oversight of corporations and restrict federal enforcement of wage laws. If confirmed by the Senate, Berry will be the DOL’s top legal officer, and his actions will have far-reaching implications for millions of workers and retirees.
Berry, a managing partner at the law firm Boyden Gray PLLC, is currently representing a Medicaid-funded home care agency in New Day Personal Care Services v. Department of Labor, a case that aims to overturn a 2013 DOL rule guaranteeing overtime pay to domestic workers employed by third-party agencies. Filed in January, Berry and his colleagues at Boyden Gray argue in the lawsuit that the rule exceeds both the Department’s statutory authority and Congress’s constitutional power to regulate intrastate domestic labor. In practical terms, it seeks to restore pre-Obama-era exemptions that would again allow employers like New Day to classify care aides as independent contractors exempt from overtime, despite those workers often providing around-the-clock services to elderly and disabled clients.
