Philadelphia’s labor movement was front and center for Gov. Josh Shapiro’s reelection campaign launch on Thursday.
Chanting “get s*** done” and “four more years,” hundreds of Philadelphia area union members and democratic voters packed the Alan Horwitz Sixth Man Center in North Philadelphia to cap off Gov. Josh Shapiro’s campaign reelection launch day.
Shapiro, who is expected to run against Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity, crisscrossed Pennsylvania by hosting campaign reelection events in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia on Thursday and touting the accomplishments of his first three years in office as governor.
“ I’ve been around a lot of politicians. I know them intimately and I know them well. Josh Shapiro is different. What he says is what he does,” Ryan Boyer, Business Manager of the Philadelphia Building Trades, told the hundreds in attendance.
“In the time of an amazing conflict, he made a phone call. We had a terrible tragedy on I-95 and we were cutting down the whole corridor to the east coast. He called me and said ‘what do I need to do to get this done quickly.’
In what was one of his top accomplishments of his first term as governor, Shapiro was able to relax regulations and red tape around rebuilding the collapsed interstate and allowed construction workers to have the highway up and running in less than two weeks.
”When this city got knocked down, when I-95 collapsed, it was the women and men of organized labor who left their homes and worked 24-7 through the heat and the rain to get our commonwealth moving again,” Shapiro said, praising the union members in attendance.
“You’re part of that, that unwritten, compact society in our democratic society. Work hard, play by the rules, earn a good wage and have a government that works just as hard for you as you build out a nation for us.”
Aside from rebuilding I-95, Shapiro touted some of his first-term accomplishments in education, which include raising education spending by close to 30%, getting money to underfunded school districts, adding universal free breakfasts for public schools, and increased investments in vocational and technical education that has helped add 34,000 apprenticeships.
A significant portion of those in attendance included younger building trades members and apprentices, and Jim Snell, Business Manager with Steamfitters Local 420, credits Shapiro’s help with renovating the union’s training center.
“ As we’re speaking right now, my training center is undergoing a major renovation to prepare my apprentices for the next 25 years,” Snell said in an interview. “Governor Shapiro has been at the forefront of helping with this renovation project with grant monies.”
In his closing remarks, Shapiro called on his supporters to help flip the Republicans controlled Pennsylvania Senate and bring an end to divided government in Harrisburg by delivering him a legislative trifecta for his second term.
“Don’t lose sight of the privilege that you have to live here in Pennsylvania, the biggest swing state that always decides at all,” Shapiro said.
“You have the ability in this election to decide the balance of power in the US House of Representatives. You have the power to help me win a trifecta in Harrisburg, where our legislature is divided by a mayor of three seats.”
