Good Afternoon everyone,

Welcome to another edition to the Keystone Labor Report, where we’re talking about home care workers from across Pennsylvania demanding that US Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) fights to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits amid a looming government shutdown, and how thousands of Temple University Hospital nurses and caregivers are preparing to strike for the first time since 2010.

You can read our previous edition here, and please remember to share this newsletter and ask your friends, colleagues, and union brothers and sisters to sign up for the Keystone Labor Report.

Sean Kitchen,

Political Correspondent, The Keystone

(Photo: Sean Kitchen)

Over 2,600 nurses, technicians, and other caregivers at Temple University Hospital and Temple Women and Families Hospital in Philadelphia are preparing to strike next week once their contracts expire on Sept. 30.

It would be the first strike at the hospital since 2010, when thousands walked off the job for 28 days. This time around, the unions representing the hospital staff voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike with 98% of their members supporting the strike.

Temple’s nurses and caregivers are represented by the Temple University Hospital Nurses Association and the Temple University Hospital Allied Health Professionals, which are affiliated with the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP).

They are preparing to strike for safer conditions that address workplace violence and staffing ratios between nurses and patients. They are also pushing back cuts to their healthcare benefits, which would increase co-pays for doctor’s visits.

Keep an eye out for upcoming editions of the Keystone Labor Report as we cover this developing story.

READ: Workplace violence has Philly

nurses and caregivers preparing to strike

(Photo: Sean Kitchen)

With the federal government careening towards a shutdown, dozens of home care workers from across Pennsylvania gathered at Fetterman’s Harrisburg office on Friday with a simple message.

They want the senator to stand up and fight them by extending tax credits from the Affordable Care Act, which are set to expire at the end of the year.

Over 270,000 Pennsylvanians who purchase their health care through Pennie, the commonwealth’s ACA marketplace, are expected to see their monthly premiums skyrocket by an average of 82% if these tax credits aren’t extended. The looming shutdown may be the only leverage Democrats have to prevent millions from losing health care.

However, that’s a pretty hefty ask for Fetterman, because he has come out against shutting down the government on multiple occasions, and it even caught the attention of President Donald Trump, who personally thanked Fetterman on Friday for voting against a shutdown.

📺: Watch Lynn Wiedner, an Allentown home care worker, explain how her premiums will skyrocket if the ACA tax credits aren’t extended

📺: Watch Helen Burke, an Erie County resident, talk about the effort she put in to help elect Fetterman.

READ: These home care workers fought for Fetterman.

Now they want him to fight for them

Direct action gets the goods. Jimmy Kimmel is back on air after customers, movie stars and other artists boycotted Disney after pulling Kimmel for making a timid joke about the Republican response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
However, Nexstar and Sinclair, two broadcasting companies that are sympathetic to Trump, are refusing to air Kimmel to roughly 30% of the country. Residents living in 14 counties around Pennsylvania won’t be able to watch the late night show.
Gov. Josh Shapiro warns that Trump’s crackdown on free speech should scare everyone.
Pennsylvania Republicans officially endorse Treasurer Stacy Garrity for Pennsylvania’s 2026 gubernatorial election.

(Photo: AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Rest in power former United Steelworkers (USW) president, Leo Gerard, a giant in the labor movement.

Gerard, who passed away at his home in Ontario on Sunday, was the seventh president of the USW, which is headquartered in Pittsburgh. He was also the longest tenured president in the union’s history, holding the office from 2001 to 2019.

As steel manufacturing jobs left Western Pennsylvania over the decades, the USW under Gerard’s leadership looked to other places to organize workers, and, starting in the 2010s, the USW scored major victories organizing thousands of adjuncts, college professors and faculty members at Pittsburgh’s major universities.

Labor leaders in Western Pennsylvania, and across the country, remembered Gerard’s commitment to the labor movement.

“Leo was a giant. In his decades of leadership at the USW, Leo relentlessly fought for his members, growing the union into the largest industrial union in North America,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond, said in a statement. “Through it all, Leo remained the most down-to-earth leader you could ever meet.”

As always, feel free to email me at seankitchen@couriernewsroom.com if you have any tips or events that you may have interest in covering.