Good afternoon everyone,

It’s Thursday, Sept. 3, and welcome to another edition of the Keystone Labor Report. You can find last week’s edition here.

I hope everyone is able to take time off and enjoy their extended Labor Day weekend with family and friends.

I know I am looking forward to hitting up the Italian Market and attending Philadelphia’s Labor Day parade. If you are looking for a festival or parade to attend this weekend, The Keystone’s Kalena Thomhave has got you covered with 14 different events happening across Pennsylvania this weekend.

Sean Kitchen

Political Correspondent, The Keystone

(Sean Kitchen / The Keystone

Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) got an early start to the Labor Day weekend after receiving campaign endorsements from seven different law enforcement unions from across the commonwealth.

Those endorsements include:

Pennsylvania State Troopers Association (PSTA)
Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5
Chester County Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 11
William Penn Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 19
Delaware County Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 27
Pennsylvania Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 92
Fraternal Order of Transit Police Lodge 109

Law enforcement unions tend to support Republicans, and the PSTA endorsed Shapiro’s opponent, Republican Stacy Garrity, for Pennsylvania Treasure in 2024. But Shapiro has been able to secure their endorsements for both of his gubernatorial campaigns

“As long as I am Governor, I will always fight for the brave law enforcement officers who protect and serve our fellow Pennsylvanians – and we are going to continue working together to ensure they have the resources and support they need to keep our communities safe all across this Commonwealth,” Shapiro said in a statement.

(Bill Clark / Roll Call via Getty Images)

While Republicans are building Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Luzerne) up as a crusader against congressional stock trading, his record would say otherwise. And now, tens of thousands of residents living in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties signed petitions to place an insider trading ban and transparency requirements on the ballot in their respective counties.

According to Spotlight PA, these referendums would ban local officials from insider trading, require elected officials to disclose financial trades, and compel the two counties to produce ethics reports for greater transparency. They would not directly affect Bresnahan, who is a member of the US House. But activists say Bresnahan’s record is what drove them to push for this measure.

“I think what is the most disappointing is [Bresnahan] had said that he’d stop trading stocks, and while we were collecting these signatures, he was trading more stocks,” Alisha Hoffman-Mirilovich, the executive director of Action Together NEPA, told The Keystone.

Shapiro made two major announcements bringing jobs to Pennsylvania this week. Chobani announced on Tuesday that it will invest $1.2 billion in a new production plant creating 900 jobs in the Lehigh Valley. And Burlington Stores, formerly known as Burlington Coat Factory, announced on Thursday that it is relocating its corporate headquarters and bringing 2,000 jobs to Philadelphia.
Leaning into his firefighter background, Bob Brooks launched “Bombero Bob,” or Firefighter Bob, to build support within the Lehigh Valley’s growing Latino population, per NBC Philadelphia.
Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Allegheny) picked up the Working Families Party endorsement for his reelection campaign this November, per Axios.

(Sean Kitchen / The Keystone)

Keystone Research Center, a progressive-leaning economic think tank based in Harrisburg, released its yearly State of Working Pennsylvania report earlier this week.

It found that Pennsylvania’s economy was growing with “fragile progress.”

According to the report, the commonwealth continues to add jobs and benefit from low unemployment, and workers wages’ have increased over the past decade, but job growth is slowing, and the recovery seen following the pandemic is starting to unravel, especially for Black and Hispanic workers.