October
25 - Human Rights Zone Campaign Launch
Members of the
United Workers from both Camden Yards and the Inner Harbor
launched the Human Rights Zone Campaign at a march and rally
today. The day started with a prayer breakfast at Light
Street Presbyterian, where the Candle Light Victory Vigil
was held the day that the stadium authority voted to pay
workers a living wage at the stadium. After the prayer breakfast,
members and allies reflected on the meaning of the historic
victory in 2007 at a service held in the church sanctuary.
Armando and Patricio sang and played guitar as we assembled
for the program.
After singing,
Armando started the service with a prayer for justice and
respect for all. Carl then told the history of the United
Workers, from our roots at a homeless shelter to our nearly
three year struggle to secure living wages for the cleaners
at Camden Yards. We then watched news footage from the Living
Wages Hunger Strike and living wage victory. Veronica led
a Unity Circle that started with the ceremonial transfer
of the Human Rights Zone flag from Lynette, a hunger striker
from 2007, to Juan a worker at the Inner Harbor. We did
this to illustrate how Camden Yards and Inner Harbor workers
are uniting for a common struggle - to secure the economic
human rights of all workers at the Inner Harbor.
After the service,
members and allies loaded into vans to Camden Yards. Once
assembled at the stadium, we marched to the Inner Harbor.
At the front of the march were workers from the Inner Harbor
and Camden Yards - holding the Human Rights Zone flag together
as they led the march. Once we arrived at the Inner Harbor
Juan presented the flag to Bennie and Tanya, spokespersons
for the rally at the Inner Harbor. Veronica, Bennie and
Tanya proclaimed that the Inner Harbor is now a Human Rights
Zone, which means that the community will not tolerate violations
of economic human rights for any worker who works at the
Inner Harbor. We are committed to struggle and fight for
our rights as long as it takes to enforce the Human Rights
Zone. Today we put everyone responsible for the working
conditions at the Inner Harbor on notice.
We also announced
that on April 18, 2009 we will announce the first employer
target and specific demands as part of the campaign. Between
now and then, workers will talk with each other to uncover
violations and to develop demands for the next phase of
the campaign.
After proclaiming
that the Inner Harbor is a Human Rights Zone, our allies
from SMEAC, Algebra Project, the Interfaith Human Rights
Advisory Network spoke. Rev. Powers, from Light Street Presbyterian
led the group in prayer. Donald spoke from SMEAC. Jamal
spoke from the Algebra Project. Other allies present were
from AFSCME, NDLON, Unite HERE!, Campaign for a Better Baltimore,
Students for Worker Justice and Red Emma's.
The Human Rights
Zone Campaign extends and expands the living wages victory.
We are extending the victory to other low-wage workers and
expanding the victory to economic human rights that include
the right to work with dignity, education and health care.
By uniting all low-wage workers at the Inner Harbor, including
service, contract, restaurant workers, across sectors and
employers, the United Workers is demonstrating how the values
of respect and dignity are universal to all.
July
24 - Cleaners invite AFSCME to form union at stadium, vote
yes
Workers
voted in support of forming an AFSCME union at the stadium,
moving the fight forward to the night step.
Despite
an intense fight from the newest contractor (The Chimes),
an overwhelming majority of cleaners voted to
be recognized as a union. Since the union drive started
on June 1st, over 190 workers have signed union cards.
The
push by the United Workers to get a union in place
started soon after the living wages victory last September.
Winning the living wage was not enough to ensure that
all human rights were respected, or that the living
wage
would
stay in place for the long haul.
As one worker
at the stadium said in the first days of the 2008 baseball
season: "We
had won the living wage, and that was great. But then,
when we went back to work,
it seemed like that was all we had won. It was the same
mistreatment, the same disrespect. And even more than the
living wage, what we had been demanding was that we get
treated with respect."
After the living wages victory,
rather than negotiate our own agreement with the stadium
or the contractor, we decided
the best way to institutionalize the victory was by forming
a union that would open up collective bargaining and
representation rights to the cleaners.
This spring worker leaders asked
AFSCME to assist them in organizing a union at the stadium
based on a idea for
a community-union partnership first proposed in 2006.
The partnership is based on the principles of dual membership
and complementary roles between the two organizations.
Cleaners at the stadium may belong to both organizations,
and both organizations will fight on behalf or worker
interests
in our respective ways.
As a community-based human rights
organization the United Workers brings our own strengths
and expertise to the fight
on behalf of stadium cleaners as does AFSCME. Cleaners
at the stadium are members of both organizations. The
union and community group work together and couple different
strengths and contribute to building workers' power for
economic justice.
The union vote
victory on Wednesday marks an important step forward,
but we expect more fights ahead.
Looking
back, it was only 4 years ago when Camden Yards looked
nearly impossible to organize. With a mostly homeless workforce,
very high turnover, extreme poverty wages, and a temp agency
labor supply model, it looked like the stadium had been
totally "union busted." With so many workers
inviting the union and a clear victory against a hostile
employer, those days are clearly over.
With our most
recent victory the United Workers has proven again that
it is
possible to reverse "union busting" conditions
and the trends leading to those conditions. Now not only
have we won the living wage, but we have opened up a way
to win the benefits of unionization for workers too often
left out of the labor movement.
With each step
forward, we've created conditions to make future gains possible.
It took nearly four years to organize workers at the stadium
to the point where the living wage victory became reality.
That's how we learned how to move bad employers out the
way (two stadium contractors have already been replaced
from to our efforts), and how to build worker power without
collective bargaining already in place.
