The United Workers Association out of Baltimore city Maryland has announced plans for a march and rally at Camden Yards on opening night of the baseball season. The UWA is an organization of day laborers and low wage-workers, who are fighting for better wages and working conditions. They are mounting a campaign to win living wages and a voice on the job at Camden Yards, and are calling on Peter Angelos to meet with them to resolve the day labor situation at the stadium. Currently, day laborers are hired to clean up the stadium after each home game. Grievances include:

--Workers are paid poverty wages.
--Workers are often not paid for all the hours they work.
--Breaks are often restricted even though shifts last between 6-10 hours.

In the past few weeks state legislators, the media, and the public have been privy to what goes on behind closed doors at the Stadium Authority: no bid contracts, nepotism, and unaccounted for money. The UWA is adding another bit of ugliness to the Stadium Authority matter, the use of sweatshop day labor pools, paid for with tax dollars. While we here politicians and community leaders talk of job creation, the Stadium Authority and those associated with it from state legislators to Peter Angelos have opted to outsource to the day labor agencies.

What: March for Labor Pool Justice
When: April 4th, 2004. March begins at 6pm, with a rally at Camden Yards starting at 7pm.
Where: the march meeting location is still being worked out. We will post an update as soon as we have the information needed.
Contact: 410-685-6589, ext. 119 or by email: tcherkis-AT-hotmail.com

Most of the day laborers employed at the stadium are homeless due to the low wages they receive from these work assignments. Here is how the trickle down system works at the stadium. The Orioles have abdicated to the Stadium Authority the responsibility for cleaning up the stadium. The Authority also doesn’t want to hire anybody for this work so they have subcontracted to Aramark this responsibility. Aramark further outsources to several day labor agencies to get the job done. In return taxpayer money trickles down through these various subcontractors to the day laborers. Workers are required to wait approximately three hours at Camden Yards for this opportunity. Once workers find out they have been hired, they must wait still another hour without pay. Workers then are restricted from taking breaks, and some do not receive gloves to pick the trash up with. Upon completion of the job, workers receive their pay. If they have worked over six hours, more than likely they will not be paid for that time. One of the agencies down at Camden only pays workers for six hours regardless of how long the job actually takes.

While the Orioles had a bad season last year, labor pool workers endured even worse. We believe that the Orioles can do better and that labor pool workers deserve better. We are calling on Peter Angelos to not allow this situation to continue, as we have seen in the last few weeks the Stadium Authority is no model of morality. We are urging Peter Angelos to meet with workers to help in resolving this situation. The UWA believes that by getting at the root causes of poverty, such as the day labor agencies, we can build a stronger movement to end poverty.

Last week at the UWA’s weekly general meeting workers wrote speeches in preparation for the protest. Here is an excerpt:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a serious problem here in Baltimore. That problem is homelessness. Some homelessness is derived from people with mental illness or different addictions. The homelessness situation we are addressing here today is derived from sweatshop labor pools like the ones run here at Oriole Park. Homeless men and women come right here to this stadium after every game is played to clean this stadium. They are often paid less than minimum wage to work between six to eight hours straight without lunch breaks. Camden Yards is not the only place in Baltimore to exploit the homeless. There are day labor pools all over the city exploiting the homeless with minimum wage pay to keep us homeless and to keep the day labor pools full. Today we are here to take a stand and expose the Stadium Authority, which is run with your tax paying dollars for what they are doing and how they contribute to the exploitation of the homeless. Help us to stop the exploitation of the homeless and to give them fair wages so they won’t be homeless anymore.”

Since putting the word out to workers, the UWA was met with two instances of assault by labor pool bosses. At Just Temps a worker handing out fliers was pushed and hit on the head by a dispatcher. The owner of Tops labor pool threatened an organizer with physical harm and then got a baseball bat to make his point more clear. These actions make visible the true character of these agencies. It is no surprise to the UWA that the labor pools would choose this time, as we build towards our protest to act with violence, to attempt to suppress our efforts. One of our themes is “making the invisible visible” because we know that the corporations who use the labor pools and the labor pools themselves benefit from the invisibility of these sweatshops. We will not let acts of aggression and assault deter our mission to make visible the struggle of thousands of low wage-workers throughout Baltimore City who demand their economic human rights.


(picture: Two UWA members from arts and culture team work out flag design for upcoming protest)