09/07/2026
LABOR DAY 2026
We wish you a happy, but sober and reflective Labor Day. It's a difficult moment for American workers, amid deepening inequality, stagnating wages & purchasing power, a spike in worker injuries and deaths following executive orders voiding safety requirements, and a federal administration openly hostile to worker rights, even as they co-opt the aesthetic of labor. It shouldn't be lost on anyone that poorer, sicker citizens have a harder time fighting attacks on voter rights, corruption, and out of control federal government in the streets and in the courts.
Pennsylvania has seen no increase in minimum wage since 2009, with its resulting knock-on drag on hourly wages for every category of worker except the 1%. Our minimum wage continues at $7.25 per hour (lower for tipped workers), lower than every bordering state ... all of which have somehow magically avoided the threatened economic & labor market harms that PA Republicans claim businesses would experience with a reasoning living minimum wage.
Our elected Democrats are fighting back, but good ideas aren't enough -- they need a Democratic PA Senate, and a Democratic majority in Washington to pass legislation. Highlights:
US Rep. Chrissy Houlahan introduced the More Paid Leave for More Americans Act, consisting of the Paid Family Leave Public-Private Partnerships Act and the Interstate Paid Leave Action Network (I-PLAN) Act. Rep. Houlahan helped pass the PRO Act, which provided new tools to protect workers, and established stronger safeguards to ensure workers can hold free and fair union elections
Gov. Josh Shapiro has cracked down on employer wage theft, investigating more than 7,000 labor law complaints statewide and returning over $4M unpaid wages to approximately 1700 PA workers. Over a thousand employers were compelled to pay PA workers and/or fined for violations of the Wage Payment and Collection Law, the Minimum Wage Act, the Prevailing Wage Act, Misclassification of Construction Employees, the Child Labor Act, and Mandatory Overtime Law for Nurses.
PA Rep. Melissa L. Shusterman has introduced H.B. 630, which would update and strengthen Pennsylvania’s equal pay law. This bill passed in the PA House in May 2025; it stalled out in the Republican PA Senate.
If we didn't have a federal holiday for Labor already, we couldn't get one now -- and we can't fight back without YOU! Please support the fight to hold the line and expand worker protections every way that you can: voting, volunteering, and donating. 💙💙
