This week has been quite a contrast from the good news of last week. Last week the UWA's leadership went to Saginaw, MI to meet with the main contractor of Camden Yards. We went expecting a fight. What we found instead were ordinary people, albeit people who are part of an unjust system, willing to listen to workers and to enter an historic partnership that will lead to the first living wage jobs for stadium workers. The result: We are one step from signing a contract that would start a worker-owned subcontractor that will pay cleaners a Living Wage of $9.06 an hour.

This week we asked the people who run some of the city's largest soup kitchens and food banks to stand with the poverty-wage cleaners at Camden Yards. Unlike the corporate officers in Saginaw, MI, Baltimore's service providers were unwilling to stand with the cleaners. I guess a $100,000 check from Peter Angelos and the Weinberg Foundation is all it takes to silence the "advocates" of the poor.

We asked the soup kitchens to stand with us because on the night of our long planned April 1st kick-off for the Summer of Justice at Camden Yards Campaign Angelos will be handing the game's ticket sales to five soup kitchens. We don't have a problem with the donations, or with the soup kitchens getting that money.

What we do have a problem with is the timing. It seemed like Angelos was trying either silence service providers or to create a distraction from the poverty wages that he profits off of. Rather than challenge the donations or the timing, we simply asked the soup kicthens to stand with the stadium's low-wage cleaners before the game. All refused.