Philly hotel workers threaten strike ahead of World Cup

May 5, 2026

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Good afternoon everyone,

It’s Tuesday, May 5, and welcome to another edition of the Keystone Labor Report.

I want to kick off this newsletter by saying hello to everyone I ran into at Philly’s May Day action this past Saturday.

It was great running into Abigail, who I interviewed for my story about Pennsylvania Turnpike rest stop workers having their wages replaced with tips, and is now working with UNITE HERE.

It was also fun running into Mr. Corrigan, my old American Government and World History teacher at Roman Catholic High School. He was able to somehow spot me in the crowd of thousands of people who showed up.

Lastly, I want to take a couple of seconds to apologize for sending out the wrong link on an article about Pennsylvania Democrats responding to the US Supreme Court ruling weakening the Voting Rights Act. You can click on a corrected link here.

CLICK here for May Day photos

Sean Kitchen

Political Correspondent, The Keystone

(Sean Kitchen / The Keystone)

With a little more than five weeks to go until the kickoff of the FIFA World Cup, one question looms, and that’s if worker strikes will have any impact on the world’s largest sporting event.

Hotel workers at the Sheraton Downtown Philadelphia, the city’s second largest hotel with over 750 rooms, are threatening to strike during the soccer tournament.

Thousands of Philadelphia-area workers and union members marched upon the hotel on May Day in support of the UNITE HERE Local 274 members who have been working more than two years without a contract.

“We haven’t had a contract. We’ve been negotiating back and forth with the billionaires and the owners, and it seems like the owners don’t want to give up on one dime, one cent,” Gerald Byers, a nine-year Sheraton Downtown Philadelphia employee and shop steward, said in an interview.

They’re not alone in threatening to walk off the job ahead of the tournament.

Close to 2,000 workers with UNITE HERE Local 11 at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, which is hosting eight matches, are threatening to strike if ICE officers are present during the games.

Hotel workers in New York City have been preparing for a potential strike when their contract representing 27,000 Hotel Trade Council members is set to expire on July 1, right in the middle of the tournament. They launched a website, fifahotelstrike.org, to keep everyone up to date about a possible strike.

READ more about May Day here

Philadelphia Building Trades and Steamfitters are backing US Sen. Dave McCormick’s permitting reform that would roll back regulations to speed up energy and infrastructure projects, per the Center Square.
Republican Treasurer Stacy Garrity confirms that she’ll pass on grass and veto adult-use recreational cannabis if elected, per Politics Pa.
Close to 200 employees at a York County manufacturing plant received their layoff notices last week, according to USA Today.

(J. Scott Applewhite / AP Photo)

Congressional stock trading has been a hot topic over the past several months with US House Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Luzerne) serving as the poster boy for calls to reform the practice.

However, US Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania), who previously called for banning congressional stock trading, is now being criticized for a recent stock purchase.

Reports show that at the end of March, Fetterman purchased between $1,000 and $15,000 in Micron Technology, which received more than $6.4 billion in federal funding that Fetterman is tasked with overseeing due to his seat on the US Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

The stock purchase was reportedly made by one of Fetterman’s children in late March and since then, Micron’s stock price has climbed by nearly 80% thanks to the ongoing AI Boom.