Living Wages Hunger Strike @ Camden Yards
Mon Aug 13, 2007 at 07:35:25 AM PDT
You are a cleaner at Camden Yards, a publicly owned baseball stadium. You will work all night - but first you must arrive at least 2 hours before your scheduled time. You get in line and wait. When a shift is assigned to you, a barcoded wristband is attached to you and you are loaded onto a van.
The loaded van waits with you and the rest of the crew waiting. Others are still waiting in the temp agency lobby, in limbo and hoping for a job tonight. Nobody is on the clock yet, this all unpaid wait time. Unpaid, but required to wait - if you leave you will be taken off the shift and most likely blacklisted. The unlucky will be sent home, but must wait and lose out on finding another job someplace else. You are all required to wait, either with your barcoded wristband or with any word. You wait in the van or in the lobby. You unpaid for up to two hours for each game you work.
Then it's time, the van leaves and the rest go home. There's no work this time of day, so if you are sent home you'll have to start looking at the corner or another agency at 6 AM the next day - waiting another couple hours before finding another poverty wage job. But the "lucky" are driven the short distance (charged nearly an hour's wage for the mandatory round trip van ride) and are required to wait outside Camden Yards. We wait, still unpaid but under the control of the temp agency. Our barcoded wristband waits with us to pass through the turnstile and to be activated so we can start earning the money we need to survive. All told, after wait times and van charges are factored in you might clear $5 an hour if you're lucky tonight.
At work you will be divided into men's and women's groups. You will be denied a rests and be told to eat your lunch in the restroom. If you must take medicine while at work you'll be yelled at and told to go home or to take the medicine next to the toliets. Work is assigned by race, language and gender - it's divide and conquer all the time.
You will be called lazy as you work so hard and so long that every inch aches and burns. Supervisors will confuse you, coming from all levels - either the stadium or the main contractor. You'll be accused of stealing the frozen steaks that you must take to the dumpster. You will be required to clean vomit without even disposal gloves. You'll be harrassed and your basic dignity is violated. This is what the state of Maryland does to the workers who clean Camden Yards each home game at the stadium. They may think you are trash, but you are not and you know that you have a right to be treated with dignity and respect.
The cleaners at Camden Yards are fed up. Fed up of mistreatment and fed up of poverty wages. That's why we've demanded living wages since 2004, and why at the start of the season we set Sept 1 as the deadline for living wages. Camden Yards told us on Aug 7 that the deadline would be missed, so we are now gearing up to ramp up pressure.
On Sept 3 the cleaners at Camden Yards will enter a hunger strike until living wages are secured.
After three years of broken promises the workers at Camden Yards are fed up. It's time to include us in Maryland's living wage legacy. There's no excuse for the publicly owned Camden Yards to keep paying poverty wages to the cleaners who work there. And that's why we will announce the Living Wages Hunger Strike on Wednesday Aug 15 at a press conference in front of Camden Yards. Starting Sept 3 the cleaners will hunger strike until a living wage is secured.
We've already protested, lobbied, proposed solutions and held face to face talks. We've held an all night vigil. driven the route of the Underground Railroad to propose a worker owned co-op to the main contractor, who is based in Michigan, and marched for Freedom from Poverty. None of this has been enough to get Camden Yards to do the right thing and include the cleaners in Maryland's living wage legacy.
We've already been promised living wage solutions - but the promises keep getting broken. Enough is enough! It's time for action and it's time for a binding living wage solution to be in place at Camden Yards.
The first broken promise came from the owner of the Orioles - who in 2004 promised to pay the difference between the poverty wage workers got from Camden Yards and the city's living wage rate. That promise was broken. Worse, the owner has since cut off all relations with the workers and has even told workers to f--- off to our faces when we protested at the All Star game in 2006. Workers are still paid povety wages at Camden Yards.
The second broken promise was from the main contractor who promised that workers could form the Living Wages Co-Op and start a pilot project that would pay workers a living wage without costing the contractor, stadium or team a penny more. On May 20, 2006 the co-op was blocked and remains blocked to this day. Workers are still paid povety wages at Camden Yards.
After three years of broken promises we're fed up. And that's why at the start of this year's baseball season we set Sept 1 as the deadline for a living wage at Camden Yards. It looks like the deadline will be missed, so we're gearing up for the Living Wages Hunger Strike now. The strike starts Sept 3, 2007 and will continue until a living wage is secured. Stand with us and get involved. Check the United Workers group for events and ways to get involved.
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Low-wage workers leading the way to poverty's end.
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