#file_1#Health care workers from Johns Hopkins Hospital, Sinai, and Greater Baltimore Medical Center filled the City Temple of Baltimore on Tuesday to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday and to continue his fight for economic justice.

"I've had too many friends who have died shortly after retirement because they couldn't afford health care despite having worked at one of the finest hospitals in the country," said Josie Shruggs, a Hopkins Hospital worker for 33 years. "The time is now and the people are us."

"It's time to let them know we won't stand for this treatment," added a GBMC worker. "Dr. King died working for the rights of all workers and it's time for us to finish that unfinished business."

The hospital workers, represented by the Service Employees International Union local 1199E-DC, are demanding wage increases to bring worker pay to the level sufficient to support middle-class lives. Additionally, the workers are asking for affordable health care for their families and retirees.

"Yes, we're going to organize ourselves, but we're also going to organize our communities...because no one is making it."

Robert Moore, the long-time local president of SEIU 1199E, pointed out that one out of every five jobs in Baltimore City is a health care job, making it the largest sector of the job market, and that raising the wages of health care workers to a middle-class level is important not only to the individual workers and their families but to the economic health of Baltimore City as a whole. While formerly Baltimore relied on well-paid manufacturing jobs, those opportunities have evaporated and it is now service-sector jobs, especially those in health care, that form the primary economic support for many families.

"A few generations ago thousands of people migrated from the south to union manufacturing jobs," recounted Moore. "They raised children, they bought houses, and they sent some children to college. Now those jobs are gone...[and] every time you look up they're calling economic development a high-rise office building or a biotech park.... Somewhere in Baltimore tonight a mother is crying because the future of her children looks bleak," Moore continued, arguing that health care jobs could take the place of manufacturing jobs in providing decent middle-class lives.

"For Our Work Is Not Yet Done": The Kings and 1199

Before Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke, the union showed a video on the relationship of Dr. Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King to 1199, including the important role Coretta Scott King played in supporting the formation of 1199 in Baltimore in 1969. The video also included a clip of Dr. King saying that he considered himself a part of 1199.

"For those who were not thought much of, [Dr. King] was advocating: for dignity, for justice, for fair play, and for everything else that is honorable," said Rev. Dr. William C. Calhoun Sr., the minister of Trinity Baptist Church and incoming president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance. "[We're] here today to celebrate all people who come together for those who are disenfranchised, disinherited, and just plain dissed."

"Save the workers - Save the families" - Reverend Jesse Jackson

"I dream of owning a house, I dream of health care, I dream of educating my children," opened Jackson in a call-and-response style. "Keep hope alive."

Jackson provided an explicitly political message to the appreciative crowd, arguing that it is time to challenge the government to provide a job, decent wages, and health care for everyone.

"Today, we have a plan and budget to rebuild Afghanistan, we have a plan and budget to rebuild Iraq, but we have no plan or budget to rebuild Baltimore. We need mass organizing and action to send Bush back to Texas," rallied Jackson.

Jackson also told the audience about Dr. King's last birthday, which Dr. King spent in a national organizing meeting to plan an interracial poor people's march for economic justice. That afternoon, Dr. King discussed the war in Vietnam, which was taking money away from the war on poverty, just as many argue that today the war in Iraq is taking money away from domestic needs.

"We have lost every major election by the margin of our despair.... Blacks must vote their hopes over their despair; whites must vote their economic interests over their racial fears," Jackson urged. "Most poor folks are not on welfare-they work every day," he reminded the crowd. "It's time for a change."

Middle class wages for a healthier city

The union also showed a power point presentation on the cost of living in Baltimore and the effect of raising health care workers to a middle-class standard of living. According to the presentation, to support a family of three a full-time worker would have to make $3,064/month or $17.41/hour, but the average GBMC, Sinai, and Hopkins worker makes only slightly over $11 hour. If the 3,500 1199 workers at those three hospitals made $17.41, they would put $63 million into the Baltimore economy in single year. A large majority of Baltimore residents believe that large employers are responsible for the economic health of the community.

(In addition to the actual amount added to the local economy from the pay raises, many economists argue that the total effect of money spent in a local economy is the real amount of money times seven. For example, backers of Camden Yards argued that the total economic benefit of the stadium would be the amount of money spent in Baltimore multiplied by a factor of seven, because the money continues to be re-spent in the local community. In the case of the hospital workers, by this logic the total economic effect would be $441 million, although the presentation did not point this out.)

Robert Moore ended, "We fully intend to get economic justice for health care workers in this city and along the way we're going to change the economic landscape in Baltimore."