Good afternoon everyone, 

It’s Tuesday, Mar. 3, 2026, and welcome back to another edition of the Keystone Labor Report. 

Today, we are going to spend some time talking about Bob Brooks’ campaign event in Easton alongside former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Monday, but first, I have a quick request to share with you. 

For those of you who are going to Netroots Nation in Philadelphia this June, I need your help getting approved for a panel with Murmuration, Voto Latino and YouGov that examines movement building and how listening to every day Americans strengthens communities and democracy. 

Netroots Nation is the largest annual progressive conference in the country with over 3,000 attendees. Please click here to vote for our panel! 

(Sean Kitchen / The Keystone)

Politico recently dubbed Bob Brooks, a retired firefighter now union leader running for Congress in the Lehigh Valley, as a candidate who wants to grab a beer with you. Naturally I traveled to Easton on Monday to do just that when I heard former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was joining Brooks for a campaign event at Weyerbacher Brewing Company.

Since launching his campaign in August, Brooks has garnered the backing of 11 different unions, and united rivaling factions of the Democratic Party with endorsements from Gov. Josh Shapiro, US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and the the Working Families Party. 

“ I think what it shows is that when you have a strong message about making life easier for the working class, about making sure that we can afford the things that we need, and about having the right kind of leadership in Washington that can cut through some of the factions and some of the tug of war that happens in any primary process” Buttigieg told The Keystone.

He added, “ if you’re just a regular person like so many folks here in Pennsylvania seventh trying to get through life, you don’t have a friend in the White House so you’re gonna need one in Congress, and I think Bob has done a great job of conveying that.”

During his speech, Brooks called for rollbacks to Republican-led health care cuts, taxing billionaires, and implementing universal health care, which all received roaring rounds of applause from a crowd of hundreds. 

He also talked about how the Democratic Party has lost its way with the working class and become a party full of executives and middle managers. 

“We’ve become known as the party of elites and it’s not working. We are losing election after election, after election,” Bob Brooks said in an interview. 

“My union members, what they’re seeing is they’ve been duped. They left the party because they didn’t feel represented anymore. They went to the Republicans or Independents, and they now are seeing they’ve been duped over there. So they’re looking for something, they’re looking for somebody to attach to, and I’m that guy.”

(Gary Miller/Getty Images)

Growing up in Philadelphia and attending high school in Center City allowed me to get involved in the city’s punk scene at a young age, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the slow-burning dumpster fire the Punk in the Park festival has become over the past several weeks.

For those of you who weren’t paying attention, the Punk in the Park Festival, which included a stop in Pittsburgh, canceled its tour after the promoter’s campaign donations to President Donald Trump were revealed. 

Pressure was mounting over the past several weeks forcing bands to drop out of the festival, but some bands, like the Dead Kennedys, famous for the song “Nazi Punks Fu*k Off,” decided to debase themselves because they needed a paycheck. 

The funniest moment in this whole debacle came when Jello Biafra, the original singer of the Dead Kennedys, reminded everyone that his former bandmates were a bunch of sellouts. 

Yeah, messy.