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Baltimore Sun: Workers Unite for Human Rights [PDF] (October 26, 2008)

The Inner Harbor laborers, who work in restaurants and janitorial services, were joined by United Workers Association members from Camden Yards who successfully waged a three-year battle for better wages and working conditions.

Last year, the Maryland Stadium Authority agreed to pay workers – who were making $7 an hour to pick up trash at Camden Yards – the state’s new $11.30-an-hour “living wage,” beginning last spring.

“Workers have identified the same issues that were found at Camden Yards as being present in the Inner Harbor, so we are transferring our efforts from Camden Yards to here, and we hope to be victorious,” said Tom Kertes, a UWA leadership organizer.

“We’re putting the Inner Harbor on notice. Workers here are demanding that we start the process, and employers have a responsibility to their workers,” he said. “And on April 18, 2009, we are going to publicly identify the worst offender.”

Kertes said the UWA has yet to speak with business operators in the Inner Harbor, but, he said, “We will be doing that very soon.”

Kertes said that the UWA is not a union and does not engage in collective bargaining.

“We believe instead in moral outrage,” he said. “Every low-wage worker is entitled to the same longtime respect other workers are given.”

I worked with The Real News twice – most recently for the past six months.  I worked with Paul during its earliest stages – when it was still branded as IWT News.  I learned a lot from the two experiences and enjoyed working with the entire time.  I support the vision of creating an honest news source, funded entirely by an audience committed to objective reporting and preservation of democracy, and wish The Real News the best as it continues with this ambitious goal.

The following is from an Op-Ed by John Cartwright, president of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council.  He wrote this op-ed while I worked for the Council as a communications consultant. It was printed in the Toronto Star on January 17, 2008.

The notion of a just society is at the heart of Canadian life. In a sense it is the Canadian dream, centring more on the collective spirit than on mere individualism. Building on this dream, we created institutions that helped extend fairness and opportunity to everyone. Universal health care, quality public schools, unemployment insurance and a strong social safety net are just some of the examples of what was undertaken in the past.

For working people, the best anti-poverty program has been collective action to improve wages and benefits. Unions have historically played this role by providing workers with a means for collective action – often across entire sectors of the economy. Manufacturing jobs were once only a source of poverty wages, until the mass unionization efforts of the 1940s. Governments in Canada and the U.S. created a legal framework to curtail the power of business and create some balance in the workplace. Today, extending the voice that unions provide to more workers across the economy is a crucial building block in the campaign against poverty. read more

Members and allies of the United Workers celebrated tonight’s historic victory at a vigil and rally at the Light Street Presbytarian Church held just hours after the MSA voted to pay cleaners a living wage. Members and allies made speeches, sang together, cut off the yellow unity bands and held a candle light vigil. We reflected on the long and difficult struggle to get to victory and on the next steps that must be taken to ensure the current cleaners all get an opportunity to work at a living wage when the new contract goes into effect at the start of the next baseball season.

Following the MSA Board meeting on Sept 6, 2007 the United Workers called off the planned Living Wages Hunger Strike and declared a living wages victory for the cleaners at Camden Yards. The Living Wages Hunger Strike was called off in response to the Maryland Stadium Authority’s decision to re-bid the current cleaning contract and to include living wages in the request for proposals.

While celebrating the living wages victory, the United Workers remains committed to ensuring that working conditions at Camden Yards improve. The United Workers will work to ensure that the current cleaners at MSA sports facilities have a fair opportunity to keep their jobs and to work at the new living wage rate.

“After three long and difficult years of struggle, we’re very excited about today’s living wage victory at Camden Yards,” said Carl Johnson of the United Workers. “Our next priority will be making sure that the current cleaners get a fair opportunity to keep their jobs next season and to work at a living wage.”

Cross posted at United Workers Unity Blog

Tonight is an historic day for low-wage workers in Baltimore! After three years of struggle, the workers who clean Camden Yards won their single demand of a living wage at the stadium.

The Maryland Stadium Authority voted tonight to re-bid the contract when it expires at the end of the year, and to include living wages in the request for proposals. This is an historic victory of day laborers, marking the first time that an organization led by the poor has won a living wage for day labor workers. Needless to say the members and staff of the United Workers are excited tonight – we just finished an amazing victory celebration at Light Street Presbyterian Church, located near Camden Yards.

I have been working on this campaign as a communications organizer since the campaign started. My role has been to help develop the campaign strategy, to train members to act as effective spokespersons and to conduct press outreach. Last year I volunteered full-time for the United Workers, commuting between Seattle and Baltimore. That’s when we put together the strategy that led to the Aug 15 announcement of the Living Wages Hunger Strike. The hunger strike was postponed on Sept 3 at an event attended by Baltimore Mayor Dixon, days after the Governor publicly announced his support for living wages at Camden Yards. Today we canceled the hunger strike minutes after the Maryland Stadium Authority voted to pay living wages to stadium cleaners.

The United Workers is an amazing organization that has brought me in touch with amazing people. I am moved to be part of this organization, and to share in the victory we won today.

I am planning to head home to Toronto either Friday or Saturday. Ron has been an amazing support for me these past two years as the campaign heated up. He has been with me, even as I have left him for months at a time to focus on work. I am ready to go home and to have some time to just hang out in our new apartment – perhaps I’ll even take a few days off before I start the next campaign.

Cross posted at Tom Kertes.com.

Toronto Star: More Americans Heading North

For 34-year-old labour organizer Tom Kertes, the move last April from Seattle, Wash., to Toronto was based on human rights.

“The words `human rights’ are foreign words in the U.S.,” Kertes said. “They only apply to other countries.”

He also cited the war in Iraq and the torture of Iraqi prisoners by Americans and the failure of the Bush administration to clearly disavow such practice as contributing factors to what is a major decision.

Everything I learned about educational television production, I learned from Biz Kids! I didn’t expect to work as a production coordinator, but when my friend Norma called and asked me if I wanted to work on a six month project with her I jumped at the chance. I forgot to ask what I’d be doing, exactly (until it was too late). The production coordinator is middle manager, and that’s quite a feat given that almost nobody else works in the middle. Production is like an hour glass, with production coordinator and line producer (the boss of production coordinator) in the middle part of the glass. Everyone above is “create the creative” and everyone below is “make the creative”. In the middle, where I worked, is “coordinate between the two”. The job was perfect for me, given my work in logistics, planning and coordination as a community organizer. And I got to see behind the set (actually, I got to coordinate the construction of the set), learning everything as I went.

The absolute best part of this experience has been the people.  I can see what people are drawn to production – be it film, television, news, theater.  The experience is intense like a campaign, but lacks the severe consequences and has an orderly (well, almost) command structure.  Plus almost everyone, on all sides of the hour glass, is creative.  All of the work is creative, it’s just that the top of glass sets the parameters of the process.  So I worked with incredible talent, and (as a bonus) got incredible fashion advice (from the costumer).  Perhaps most interesting thing I learned was that television production calls for as much protocol as imagine does the United Nations!

Baltimore Sun: Poorer City Residents Pay More for Goods

In the Baltimore region, 31 percent of neighborhoods with family incomes below $30,000 had a bank or credit union, the fourth-lowest percentage among the areas studied, the report found. In contrast, 60 percent of Baltimore area neighborhoods with family incomes between $30,000 and $59,999 had a bank or credit union.

Fellowes said a $15,000-a-year Baltimore-area wage-earner could save $600 a year by going to a bank instead of relying on a check-casher, and that the same worker would save more than $400 a year in auto insurance if he or she lived in a high-income suburban community rather than a poor city neighborhood.

Bonnie Howard, a senior associate at the Casey Foundation, which works to improve the lives of disadvantaged children, said the issue of financial well-being was an “important element in the family-strengthening agenda.”

“The children who are most vulnerable are those who don’t have economic stability,” she said.

The Abell Foundation is funding a similar study that will take a more in-depth look just at Baltimore.

Tom Kertes, spokesman for the United Workers Association, which represents low-wage workers said he welcomed any attention to poverty but added the study’s conclusions are “not news to us.”

“We call it the ghetto tax,” he said.