Good afternoon everyone, 

And welcome back to another edition of the Keystone Labor Report. 

Growing up as a die-hard Philadelphia Eagles fan, I am never one to gloat or take a victory lap after a big, but in this case it feels warranted. That’s why I want to update you on some of our reporting around Limitless Cyber Charter School.

Last week we published a story revealing Limitless’ shoddy cyber charter school application for the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) review, and the organization withdrew its application one week after. 

As Susan Spicka, Education Voters of Pennsylvania Executive Director, pointed out in testimony, Limitless used an artificial intelligence (AI) program similar to Chat GPT to draft their application and included the AI prompts and questions inside their application. 

It was really something to behold. You can read more about the application here.

Thank you to Susan for relaying this update about Limitless’ application in her newsletter, which keeps a track of cyber charter schools and their spending habits.

(Photo: Sean Kitchen)

Over 100 Starbucks workers, labor leaders, legislators and supporters from around the commonwealth, and different parts of the country, gathered outside of the coffee giant’s distribution center in York County and delayed close to a dozen deliveries to stores across the Northeastern US on Wednesday. 

Alex Pearlman, a Philadelphia-area TikTok influencer, was one of many who helped put the Starbucks workers’ message on blast through various social media accounts. 

Wednesday’s action was the latest in a series of movements after Starbucks workers across the country went on strike last week on Red Cup Day—one of Starbucks’ busiest days of the year. 

“ It’s an absolute reasonable demand to make a multinational, multi-billion dollar corporation pay their fair share.” Matthew Yarnell, President of Service Employees International Union Healthcare Pennsylvania, told the demonstrators. 

“This company pays its new CEO – which is its fourth now I’ve learned today – nearly 7,000 times what it pays its baristas. That is an outrage. That is an outrage to say they can’t settle a contract.”

(Sean Kitchen / The Keystone)

Congratulations to all of the Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC) professors and faculty members who voted in favor of ratifying their first contract earlier this week. 

The contract protects intellectual property created or owned by faculty members, and it includes retrenchment language, just cause for disciplinary actions, and a clear grievance procedure. 

It also includes partial backpay to offset three years of missed raises and creates a raise schedule going forward for both full-time and adjunct faculty members. 

It took HACC’s faculty members more than three years to get to this point, and it’s been nice getting to know some of the faculty members and professors during this time. 

(Sean Kitchen / The Keystone)

Democrats in the US House successfully obtained enough signatures on a discharge petition to force a vote on legislation reinstating collective bargaining rights for close to 1 million federal workers. President Donald Trump originally signed an executive order in March stripping those rights away. 

However, US House Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-Lehigh) likes to post about supporting workers on social media but refused to sign onto the petition. 

“Mackenzie talks a big game about being pro-labor, pro-first responder, and pro-worker online, but his voting record tells the real story: when we need him, he’s sticking it to us,” Bob Brooks, President of the Pennsylvania Professional Firefighters Association and candidate for US House in the Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, said in a statement.