BALTIMORE - June 24th, about 50 day labor cleaners and their supporters marched more than 20 blocks from Lovely Lane Methodist Church to the law offices of Peter Angelos in downtown Baltimore. The workers, members of the United Workers Association, seek a living wage of $9.06 and the establishment of a workers cooperative through which to contract with Baltimore Orioles management for work.

The cleaning workers' protests began in the summer of 2003 when the UWA publicized that workers were making $4 an hour at Camden Years under the subcontractor Aramark. Orioles owner Peter Angelos made a promise that cleaners would be paid a living wage, according to UWA spokesperson Tom Kertes. In 2004, Aramark was fired and Knight Facilities Management was contracted and agreed to a Code of Conduct. However, the workers are still only paid $7 per hour. UWA workers continued to build support in the larger Baltimore community for their cause.

The previous day, the cleaning workers and their supporters held a 24-hour vigil outside One North Charles Street, Angelos's offce building. On the 24th, UWA workers were joined by several activists from Washington DC, Kenneth Miller from the anti-sweatshop movement in Pittsburgh, Brother Jerry O'Leary of the Murphy Initiative for Justice and Peace, Ryan Harvey of political music network RiotFolk, and Nathaniel Swann, brother of one of the Black athletes who made protest at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.

Planning for protests at the July 11th baseball All-Star Games, Kenneth Miller was down from Pittsburgh to build alliances between the United Workers Association and the anti-sweatshop movement which focuses on the production of baseball logo shirts as a target for organizing against sweatshop labor. Exploited, low-wage work is a "human rights baseball" issue whether the workers be cleaning in the stadiums or making shirts in a free-trade zone in Jordan, said Miller.

Following a magenta-lettered banner "Living Wage for the Workers at Camden Yards," the protesters marched 14 blocks south, then took a break outside Red Emma's Bookstore Cafe where they drank cold water or ice coffee.

Indymedia recognized Jerry O'Leary of the Murphy Initiative who had recently testified on the need for affordable housing at the public hearings on the City's Master Plan. O'Leary was supporting the UWA because of the important link between low-wage work and housing issues, he said.

At the end of the break, Ryan Harvey of RiotFolk sang "Field of Schemes":

Buy you a ticket, I'll do the same
Gonna watch our team play a baseball game
The stadium's huge it's such a sight
The scoreboard flash, the giant lights
…

They're filling up the bleechers as quick the cells
The city tore down the projects to build hotels
So some overpaid guys could play with bats
And sell foam hands and plastic hats
It's a field of schemes
…

The city's poor never see the cash
But they're hired by the temps to pick up trash
You see em standing out each night in lines
Just to clean the seats for 5.25
…

Now I like baseball, don't get me wrong
But the days of old are dead and gone
And now somebody's making a killer deal
And the players are playing for the dollar bill

Yeah this ain't sports that we're talking about
It's corporate-business buying it out
Stealing it the same way they stole
Hip-hip, folk and rock n' roll
It's a field of schemes

More lyrics of Field of Schemes

Refreshed after song and water, the march proceeded two-abreast in the right lane of St. Paul Street slowing traffic along the way until they reached One North Charles Street. The protesters strung a clothes line with 'Orioles' shirts with lettering "No Sweatshops," "Homelessness," "Hunger," "Poverty," and "Angelos Clean up Your Dirty Laundry Now!" They chanted "Living Wage Now," "Sweatshop All-Stars," "El Pueblo Unido Hamas Sera Vencido!"

At Charles and Fayette Streets, while marchers were presented with a graphic educational (presented on banners) on ethnic division among workers, imperialism, sweatshops, and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, Indymedia spoke with Nathaniel Swann.

Swann is brother of Edward Swann, the silver medalist track athlete who, at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, raised a clenched fist in solidarity with the struggle of African Americans. Afterwards, Edward Swann was black-balled for endorsements and now lives in retirement with diabetes in Detroit, according to his brother. The 52-year old Nathaniel Swann works construction in Baltimore and had walked by Lovely Lane Church earlier in the day. Swann said, "Whenever a cause for fairness arises, I join it, I'm for it." Swann said he joined the march because he was moved by stadium workers' stories of their working conditions and humiliation at the job.

[During the previous night's vigil, Indymedia spoke with Camden Yards cleaning workers about their situation. See upcoming interviews]

Indymedia made an attempt to visit Peter Angelos in his office—the sign-in sheet indicated Angelos was in. A guard called up, but got no answer. She gave us a card.

Further meetings with Orioles management are planned for this week on the formation of a workers cooperative and a living wage.

See also Indymedia Photoessay on UWA Protest in DC:

baltimore.indymedia.org/pbook/display/15/index.php
baltimore.indymedia.org/pbook/uwaprotest/chapter/1