Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) ran a gubernatorial campaign that put labor front and center. Now, union leaders across Pennsylvania are looking forward to him using Democratic majorities in the Pennsylvania House and Senate to pass worker-friendly legislation.
“I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve never seen that before,” Robert Bair, president of the Pennsylvania Building Trades, said in an interview. “This was the first time I’ve seen a governor that actually said, ‘I support labor, I support the union in PA, and I’m going to prove it,’ and he did.”
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Shapiro kicked off his reelection campaign in early January with back-to-back events in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh that heavily featured labor leaders from the two cities and continued elevating their issues throughout the campaign.
In the final 100 days of the campaign, Shapiro and the Democratic Party held events at union halls or training centers based in Allegheny, Cumberland, Dauphin, Lackawanna, Lehigh, and Northampton counties to name a few.
Shapiro cruised to reelection last Tuesday evening after beating his Republican opponent, Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity, by a 22-point margin, while Democrats flipped the state Senate and expanded their state House majority.
“[Shapiro] pulled off a Herculean task, and with him being at the top of the ticket, I think that’s really what made the difference on a lot of the down-ballot races. It brought a lot of people out,” Robert Bair, president of the Pennsylvania Building Trades, said in an interview.
He added, “Now that the governor actually has a House and a Senate, I think you’re going to see a lot of good worker-centric and economic development-centric legislation moving through those two chambers.”
Following his victory, Shapiro announced that he and Democratic leaders will unveil an agenda for the first 100 days of his second term in the near future, and he hinted at some of the agenda items he’d like to accomplish.
“ He’s not going to let grass grow under his feet and is going to be moving with a lot of speed and vision to improve things for working Pennsylvanians,” Daniel Bauder, president of the Philadelphia AFL-CIO, said in an interview.
“Raising the minimum wage, public-sector OSHA protection, public transit funding. A whole host of priorities and things that have passed in the state House in the last four years but have not moved at all in the state Senate.”
In his first term, Shapiro relaxed degree requirements for commonwealth employees, helped fund training centers and vocational education programs, and used $400 million from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation and the Inflation Reduction Act to fund workforce development programs.
Both Bair and Bauder agree that labor leaders at the national and international levels have noticed Shapiro’s labor record ahead of a potential 2028 presidential campaign.
“ I feel like his approach to the labor movement is one of the best. It reminds me a lot of the ways that the Biden administration partnered with the labor movement,” Bauder said.
“And I think that because of the governor’s tenacity and his just aggressive desire to produce results for Pennsylvania, it’s turbocharged. I think that we are going to have a really, really great run of bills and a really great environment for unions and for working people in Pennsylvania.”
