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2002-2007: Fighting for Our Human Rights
The United Workers was founded by homeless day laborers in an abandoned firehouse turned into a homeess shelter. The group started through a series of discussions about the root causes of poverty. Workers asked questions and challenged even our own assumptions about the causes of poverty. Homelessness is often demoralizing, especially when blame is misdirected at the victims of poverty and not at those who benefit from poverty.

Through these talks workers recognized certain patterns. For one thing, we realized that lack of working, or laziness, was certainly not the problem. The workers in the shelter were working almost all the time. Many would leave the shelter as early as 5 AM and return twelve hours later with less than $30 in their pocket. Time at work included hours of waiting and going and coming from work. None of this time was compensated, even though it is a requirement to work. Workers were charged mandatory check cashing fees, transportation charges and for the rental of needed safety equipment. All of these fees drove already low wages down further.

We were all working, but nobody had a job. Each day the cycle was repeated: Leave early, go to a temp agency, wait and hope for work, get driven to the job, rent safety equipment, pay for transportation, work, get driven back to the agency, wait, get a check, pay to cash it and barely have enough to feed yourself for the day.

Slavery was a word that came up a lot. Wages barely enough to feed yourself, let alone to support a family on, are slave-wages. Working to survive is slavery. We recognized that the system itself, like the slavery system, was broken. It was broken and was breaking us.

We also thought about how to change things, how take down this system just like institutional slavery had been taken down. A lot of our early conversations were about leadership, about how workers needed to develop themselves as leaders in order to change the political realities that cause poverty. Our thinking was influenced by the leadership of other workers, including the workers in Immokalee Florida and others in the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign.

Through these conversations we decided to demand our human rights - including our economic human rights. Human rights are based on the inherent value of all persons, on the values of dignity and respect. The day labor system is an affront to human rights, to human dignity. We decided to take on the system by asserting our rights as persons.

2002-2003: Developing a Strategy to Win
Through the founding process, and over the course of years of leadership development and analysis, we decided to start organizing other workers and to secure human rights for ourselves and others at Baltimore's largest employer of day labor, the publicly-owned Camden Yards. Camden Yards is home to the Baltimore Orioles, a team owned by Peter Angelos. The Orioles, Angelos and Camden Yards were all good places to start our campaign for human rights for several reasons. First, the team and the stadium were high profile enough to draw attention to our demands. Second, Angelos has positioned himself as a "friend of labor" - making him a possible ally in our struggle. Third, Camden Yards provided a clear example of what was wrong with the temp labor system.

We focused on a single demand from the start: Pay every worker at Camden Yards at least the Baltimore City living wage. Baltimore was the first city in the United States to pass living wage legislation, but the stadium was not covered by this law because Camden Yards belongs to the state of Maryland, not Baltimore City. Anything less than a living wage is a poverty-wage, and we wanted to drive home the point that paying workers poverty-wages is part of the cause of poverty.

Camden Yards was rampant with human rights violations. When we started organizing at the stadium workers were paid a flat rate - regardless of hours worked. This resulted in workers usually making less than $4.50 an hour - not counting unpaid wait times. Woman were harassed. Breaks were denied and workers were mistreated on a daily basis.

Camden Yards uses a contractor system that's all to common in the United States. When we started the living wages campaign at Camden Yards the stadium's contractor was Aramark. Aramark in turn hired temp agencies. Through this system it was the temp agencies that paid workers less than $4.50 an hour. But while the agencies do poverty's dirty work, who benefits is further up the chain. At Camden Yards, it is the owner of the Orioles who gains the most. Angelos use public dollars for private gain, exploiting workers to keep the stadium that we own and that he uses clean.

2004 - Summer of Hope: Launching the Campaign for Living Wages at Camden Yards
After years of research, strategy and leadership development we were ready to take on poverty head on. Our target had been identified and our demand developed. On opening day in the spring of 2004 we launched our first public campaign.Our demand has been constant: Pay every cleaner at Camden Yards at least the Baltimore City living wage.

We called our first year the Summer of Hope because Angelos made an early promise that the Orioles would pay workers the living wage. He made this promise to our attorney Peter Sabonis - saying that as a "friend of labor" he'd end the poverty wages at Camden Yards. All Angelos wanted in return was for us to hold off on attacks against him. Since there would be no reason to attack Angelos once the promise was fulfilled we stuck to our end of the bargain.

While we waited for Angelos to keep his promise we focused on specific human rights violations at the stadium. We met with Camden Yards and asked that Aramark's contract be terminated, that the flat rate be dropped and that all labor laws be followed. This resulted in Aramark's contract being terminated and a new contractor taking their place. The new contractor signed an historic "Code of Conduct" that recognized the United Workers. The code excluded transportation charges over bus fare, required breaks and promised workers a voice on the job.

2005 - Summer of Honor: Demanding Angelos Honor His Word
With Aramark fired, wages brought up to above the minimum wage and the Code of Conduct in place, we returned to Angelos's promise to pay workers a living wage. We had kept our end of the bargain, not attacking Angelos for the entire 2004 baseball season. But he did not honor his promise.

With poverty wages still in place we set our targets on Angelos, holding a protest on Union Night at Camden Yards. The Peanuts for Poverty Wages protest was about holding Angelos to account for lying to workers and not keeping his promise. No friend of labor lies to workers. No friend of labor profits from poverty.

2006 - Summer of Justice: Taking Justice into Our Own Hands

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD TOUR
We started the Summer of Justice by traveling along the route of the Underground Railroad from Maryland to Michigan to propose that the main contractor at Camden Yards hire workers directly through the Living Wages Co-Op. By eliminating the waste in the temp agency system, the Living Wages Co-Op would pay workers a living wage without costing the stadium or the contractor a penny more.

Along the trip to Saginaw, Michigan (where the contractor is based) we stopped at depots, safe houses and Underground Railroad churches to reflect on how heroes like Harriet Tubman had taken justice into their own hands to free the slaves.

We met with the contractor who agreed to hire the Living Wages Co-Op, even holding joint press conference to announce that the Living Wages Co-Op would be working at the stadium starting May 20, 2006. With the promise in place, we returned to Baltimore to set up a democratic, worker-owned and run cleaning subcontractor. Worker met and agreed on how to run their co-op according to human rights principles.

LET US WORK PROTEST
Like Angelos, the cleaning contractor did not not honor it's word. In the weeks leading up to the May 20, 2006 start date the contractor stop returning phone calls and cut off all communication. It was clear that someone had blocked the co-op, or that the contractor had never intended to hire a worker-owned subcontractor. Even though we had figured out how to pay a living wage without costing anyone a penny more, the system of poverty wages would remain in place.

We called an emergency meeting of our members and the workers who had formed the Living Wages Co-Op. Instead of starting work for a living wage, we'd show up to Camden Yards and demand that they "Let Us Work!" for a living wage.

FREEDOM FROM POVERTY MARCH & VIGIL
We closed the summer of justice by holding an all-night vigil in front of Peter Angelos's downtown office. The vigil was followed by a march with our community supporters.

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