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Pennsylvania

Following ICE Raid, Mill Town Fights Back Against Local Police Cooperation

Ambridge, PA - In recent years, the dying mill town of Ambridge has seen revival as Latino immigrants pour into the community. However, a recent raid by ICE working in conjunction with local police has angered many residents and raised important questions about how even small municipalities like Ambridge can resist Trump’s attack on immigrants.  In 2016, Trump held a rally in Ambridge. After Trump won Pennsylvania, Gabriel Trip writing for The New York Times in an article entitled “ A Pennsylvania Town in Decline and Despair Looks to Donald Trump” wrote that, “Ambridge, like much of Pennsylvania outside Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, eagerly enlisted in Trump Nation this year.”

‘Northumberland 2’ Mink Fur Farm Case: RICO Charge Dropped

Sunbury, PA – Two women from Massachusetts and several dozen supporters from around the country traveled to a small central Pennsylvania town for the first major hearing in a felony case stemming from their arrest last November. The ‘Northumberland 2’ – Celeste Legere and Cara Mitrano – face a litany of PA state charges after being accused of an October 18-19, 2024 break-in at the Richard H. Stahl & Sons, Inc. fur farm in which 683 mink were released from their pens and breeding records were destroyed. Monday’s hearing saw prosecutors drop the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) charge leveled against both activists from Massachusetts.

Philadelphia DC 33 Strikers: ‘When We Fight, We Win!’

Philadelphia, PA - As the historic strike by 9,000 members of Philadelphia’s American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 33 continues, workers’ militancy is escalating, and support for them is growing. Mountains of uncollected garbage are growing at official city collection sites in neighborhoods around the city. Some have been dubbed “the Parker Piles” after Mayor Cherelle Parker. Actions in support of the striking workers are being held all over the city, from protests outside municipal buildings to shutdowns of scab trash collection sites to librarians’ refusals to cross the picket lines of their library staff maintenance coworkers.

Philadelphia Municipal Workers Strike Before July 4 Celebrations

Nine thousand blue-collar workers who make Philadelphia run went on strike July 1. After sacrificing through the pandemic and years of bruising inflation, they say they’re on strike so they can afford to live in the city they serve. Already, uncollected garbage is piling up as the workers, members of AFSCME District Council 33, defend their strike lines. The COVID-19 pandemic brought the term “essential worker” into widespread use, but many experienced a gap between how they were talked about and how they were treated. They were called essential, but regarded as disposable. In June 2020, at the height of the pandemic, hundreds of Philadelphia sanitation workers and other DC 33 members rallied to demand hazard pay and personal protective equipment.

Philadelphia’s Largest Blue-Collar Workers’ Union Goes On Strike

Philadelphia's largest city workers' union is on strike for the first time in nearly 40 years on Tuesday after a deal couldn't be reached with the city. AFSCME District Council 33, which represents thousands of city workers, including trash collectors and police dispatchers, is walking off the job after negotiations didn't end in a deal. The union last went on a strike in 1986. Here's what you need to know about the strike and how it will affect Philadelphia. District Council 33 represents about 9,000 city workers in services handled by the Sanitation Department, Water Department, Police Dispatch, Streets Department, maintenance at the airport and more. The union left Monday morning's negotiations with the Parker administration without a new contract in place.

Philadelphia Police Crack Down On Anti-ICE Marches Twice In One Week

Philadelphia, PA — The increasing tempo of pro-immigrant, anti-ICE protests hit Philadelphia last week, and the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) has decided to crack down. On Tuesday, June 10, and Saturday, June 14, autonomous protests were called outside of the Federal Detention Center (FDC), where up to 125 immigrant detainees can be held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Tuesday protest included 80-100 protesters, while the Saturday demonstration brought an estimated 300. Both marches were met with intense police response which resulted in injuries and arrests. Unlike other cities, where police shot tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds, the Philadelphia Police Department dispersed marches with tools on hand: battering protesters with batons, corralling the crowd with bicycles and nearly running activists and journalists over with motorized dirt bikes.

Protests Target Philly-Based ‘Genocide Profiteer’ Day & Zimmermann

Philadelphia, PA — “Before long the entire city will know what this company does!” These were some of the last words spoken Tuesday morning by a protester with a megaphone and a kaffiyeh scarf after a few dozen people had gathered for two hours outside a well-appointed office building in Center City Philadelphia. Their target was Day & Zimmermann, a “construction, engineering, staffing and ammunition manufacture” company that makes shells and machine gun rounds used by Israel to kill Palestinians. Employees arriving for work at the weapons manufacturer’s headquarters on June 3 found themselves greeted with banners reading “Day & Zimmermann Out Of Philly! – No Genocide Profiteers In Our Neighborhood” and “Day and Zimmermann Profits From Genocide in Gaza.“

Locomotive Builders Forge Green Rail Project

Union workers who make diesel locomotives at a plant in Pennsylvania are pushing ahead with their campaign to manufacture more green-powered locomotives. The workers aim to clean up diesel railroad pollution while also revitalizing their locomotive engine manufacturing plant in Erie. But they’re facing roadblocks, and the recent federal chaos has added to the uncertainty. In the meantime, workers are making direct changes to clean up their jobsite. The Wabtec plant, formerly General Electric, makes diesel locomotives for both freight and passenger trains. The company began researching all-electric and hybrid diesel-electric locomotives several years ago, and more recently began exploring hydrogen power.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Denies Mumia Abu Jamal’s Appeal

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - On March 26, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal permission to appeal a September 2024 Pennsylvania Superior Court denial of his latest petition to reverse his 1982 conviction. The Supreme Court ruling ends Mumia’s state court challenge at this time. Mumia’s sixth petition was based on credible new evidence of prosecutorial misconduct — including Brady violations based on incentives given to the state’s key witnesses Cynthia White and Robert Chobert to give false testimony. The new evidence, found buried in storage boxes in a remote area of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office and turned over to Mumia’s lawyers in December 2021 also included evidence of racial bias in jury selection, a Batson violation.

Philadelphia Protest Against Transit System’s Proposed Draconian Cuts

Philadelphia, PA - Philadelphia’s transit system, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA), released a budget on April 10 that includes draconian cuts in services, increased fares and reduced hours of operation. Claiming a $213 million deficit, the budget due to take effect July 1 would impose a 45% service cut, a 21.5% fare increase and layoffs of transit workers. Under the proposed plan, some service cuts would go into effect on Sept. 1, along with the fare increase. Between Aug. 24, 2025, and Jan. 1, 2026, fifty bus routes would be shut down and 16 others shortened. On Jan. 1, 2026, five Regional Rail lines between neighboring suburbs and the city would be eliminated and a 9 p.m. rail curfew would go into effect.

Swarthmore Students Punished For Gaza Protests

Swarthmore College issued sanctions on March 6 against 15 students for participating in anti-genocide activism for Palestinians in Gaza. Their peaceful demonstrations of solidarity with Gaza occurred between October 2023 and March 2024. The college in Media, Pennsylvania, is located outside of Philadelphia. The most extreme sanctions are aimed against one graduating senior who was suspended, nine who received one-semester probation and one who received a two-semester probation. The second-semester senior set to graduate was suspended on the charge of “assault” for the use of a megaphone indoors.

Pennsylvania Governor Sues Trump Administration Over Frozen IRA Funds

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced a lawsuit on Thursday against President Donald Trump’s administration for freezing funding made available through the Inflation Reduction Act. As Utility Dive reported, Trump ordered a freeze to IRA funds in an executive order made his first day in office. According to the governor’s office, Pennsylvania state agencies have not been able to access the Solar for All funds or other IRA funding, despite a federal judge ruling on Monday that the current administration must comply with a previous order that blocked the IRA funding freeze, CBS News reported.

How Philly Whole Foods Workers Beat Bezos

Can labor sustain its forward momentum under Trump? The first big test came last Monday, when Whole Foods workers in Philadelphia voted on whether to unionize with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). Many in the labor movement were expecting a loss, since MAGA is now in office and since management — headed by Trump’s new billionaire buddy Jeff Bezos — went scorched earth against the nascent union effort. But a multiracial crew of young, self-organized, left-leaning workers proved the skeptics wrong, as so often has been the case since 2021.

Thousands Of Resident Physicians In Philadelphia Voted To Unionize

Eight in 10 doctors-in-training in Philadelphia are now represented by unions, following a wave of labor organizing across major health systems in the region. Doctors at three Philadelphia health systems and Delaware's largest health provider voted to join the Committee of Interns and Residents, a division of the Service Employees International Union. The move follows a national trend of physicians unionizing around the country, as doctors increasingly look for solutions to burnout in a field now dominated by large health system employers.

Whistleblower Demands Governor Fix ‘Completely Unregulated’ Fracking Wastewater Network

A whistleblowing Pennsylvania oil and gas worker, together with the state’s former lead environmental regulator, are ringing the alarm bell on an unregulated and shadowy network of pipelines at least hundreds, and perhaps even thousands of miles long. The pipeline system was constructed over the past decade by oil and gas operators in Pennsylvania to transport toxic and radioactive fracking wastewater. “There is no oversight,” says Robert Green, who works in southwestern Pennsylvania as a hydrostatic tester, a niche job in the industry that involves assuring pipelines can appropriately handle the complex and often hazardous fuels and waste streams they contain.
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