UAW defends Bob Brooks

August 27, 2026

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Good afternoon everyone,

It’s Thursday, Aug. 27, and welcome back to another edition of the Keystone Labor Report. You can find last week’s edition here.

We are less than 70 days away from the 2026 election, and recent polling shows that Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) is comfortably holding onto a double digit lead over Republican Treasurer Stacy Garrity.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Times, and Siena University released a poll on Tuesday, Aug 25., showing Shapiro ahead by 16 points, while a Franklin and Marshall poll released earlier today shows the governor ahead by 25 points.

With the Iran War showing no signs of stopping and the cost of basic necessities such as food and gas continuing to rise, the Franklin and Marshall poll shows Democrats opening up a 12-point generic ballot lead, while President Donald Trump’s approval rating sits at 27%.

Sean Kitchen

Political Correspondent, The Keystone

(Sean Kitchen / The Keystone

Union members from the United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 677 were quick to defend Bob Brooks, a retired firefighter and labor leader now running for Congress as a Democrat, after Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-Lehigh) attacked Brooks’ union credentials at a Carbon County Republican event on Tuesday.

Mackenzie has attacked Brooks for calling volunteer firefighters who respond to calls in areas where there are unionized firefighters as “scabs.” Earlier this week, Mackenzie stated that Brooks is “beholden to union policies,” and wants “things slanted in [the union’s] favor.”

Shawn Smith, a UAW member and Mack Trucks employee, defended Brooks’ union record and also offered some insight into their endorsement meetings with both candidates.

“[Mackenzie] sits down and the first thing he says was, ‘Well, let me tell you guys, I’m a career politician.’ You just sat down with middle-class union workers and your first statement was, ‘I’m a career politician,’” Smith said.

He added, “ I think it was a spin to try and say Bob Brooks doesn’t have what it takes to be a politician. He doesn’t have the experience. He’s never had to do the voting. But that landed completely wrong in a room full of auto workers.”

Mackenzie was caught embellishing, or perhaps even fabricating, his record as a real estate agent, according to The Guardian.
Starbucks Workers United, the union that represents more than 12,000 Starbucks employees across the country, is calling for a nationwide boycott of the coffee chain as contract negotiations continue to stall, per the Huffington Post.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) endorses Rep. Chris Deluzio’s (D-Allegheny) reelection campaign, per WESA.

(Screenshot: Facebook)

With data centers dominating the election rhetoric over the past week, one last thing I wanted to highlight is an ad that State Sen. Tracy Pennycuick (R-Bucks) recently posted on Facebook.

This is definitely the first time I’ve ever noticed something this weird in an election cycle.

Pennycuick spent thousands of dollars trying to convince voters that she’s standing up to Big Tech and data centers by attacking legislation… that she, herself, introduced.

Over the past year, Pennycuick introduced a bill to fast-track data center construction, amended it in her committee, and took credit for stalling the bill in an attempt to show voters that she’s standing up to these developers.