United Workers

International Worker’s Day is a day for lifting up the voices of workers struggling for dignity and justice at work and in their communities. It is a celebration of unity and solidarity across geography, sectors, race, gender, and all barriers that would divide us. Across the world, marches and actions take place to honor this day. In Baltimore, postal workers, service-sector workers, day laborers, community activists and labor organizers will rally at McKeldin Square at the Inner Harbor. While in Montpelier, our good friends, the Vermont Workers Center are staging their annual May Day march and rally to Put People First.

It is in this spirit of raising our voices that we share this video of United Workers leader, Raquel Rojas, telling her story. She connects the exploitation she experienced working at a marble factory in Mexico to the exploitation she experienced working at the Cheesecake Factory in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Raquel talks about why she decided to become an organizer, saying that, “the struggle for human rights is one that I believe we all must carry.”

Raquel has become one of many leaders in the fight for Fair Development at the Inner Harbor. On November 18, 2010, she led a delegation of workers and allies to General Growth’s Properties offices at Harborplace to once again call their attention to the rampant human rights violations taking place at their mall, see past web post. Despite these attempts by workers, GGP has continued to turn a blind eye to the exploitation of workers. That is why, as Raquel states, we must all carry the struggle for human rights and why we’re asking for everyone to join the March to Occupy GGP on Saturday, May 19th.

Go here for more information on the March to Occupy GGP. If you have not already told us you’re planning on coming, please email us at occupyggp@unitedworkers.org or call us at 410-230-1998.

The Occupy the Mall movement is picking up speed. Last week, we announced the March to Occupy GGP, a major non-violent march and occupation at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor on May 19th, allies in Florida, Minnesota, and Vermont participated in the National Day of Action, we recorded a radio appearance for the Michael Eric Dyson Show and we hit GGP’s South St. Seaport Mall this Saturday with a spectacular letter drop as a part of the Left Forum Conference in New York. What a week!

For a recap of the National Day of Action and announcement of the “March to Occupy GGP,” check-out this powerful video produced by our very own internal media team. Thanks to the Vermont Workers Center, the Center for Workers United in Struggle, and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers for bringing the fight for Fair Development home!

Also, tune in to the Michael Eric Dyson Show on Monday, March 26th at 9am (EST) in Baltimore on WEAA 88.9 or stream live via the web to hear Inner Harbor worker, Jared Gary, and Leadership Organizer, Luis Larin talk about the poverty producing conditions at the Inner Harbor and the struggle to hold General Growth Properties accountable.

Be on the look-out for more videos and updates to come!

On the National Day of Action, the Center for Workers United in Struggle (CTUL) and allies took steps to demonstrate to GGP that the message was spreading that GGP does not promote respect for human rights in their developments. As an organization that organizes retail cleaners, CTUL connected the conditions of cleaners in the Minneapolis to the conditions at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Thank you to CTUL for their consciousness in demonstrating the connectedness of our struggles.

To learn more about CTUL, go to http://ctul.net/

The Vermont Workers Center took part in yesterday’s National Day of Action against General Growth Properties by staging a letter drop at GGP’s “Burlington Town Center Mall”. Our allies in Vermont touched our hearts, as we learned that they sang “Solidarity Forever” during the letter drop. Thanks to Vermont Workers Center for your deep commitment to the human rights of everyone, everywhere.

To learn more about the Vermont Workers Center, go to www.workerscenter.org

The United Workers attempted a “letter drop” at the Towson Town Center mall on Thursday, December 15th. After harbor workers were blocked from carrying out the action, we returned the very next day! “Drops” will continue at GGP malls from Baltimore to Chicago, home to GGP’s headquarters, until GGP meets all demands.

Wish you had been at Saturday’s “letter drop”? Well, here’s the next best thing. Check-out this amazing video from our internal media team! Stay tuned for updates on upcoming “letter drops”.

The Baltimore Brew was present for yesterday’s “letter drop” at the Gallery Mall across from the harbor. Here’s an excerpt from the article.

The “letter drop” was not a merchandising gimmick, but instead marked the start of a renewed campaign by Baltimore-based United Workers to draw attention to what they call human rights violations tolerated by mall owner General Growth Properties (GGP).

To read the full article, go to www.baltimorebrew.com

We kicked off the Fair Development Conference with an evening of music, food, and keynote speeches. The three guest keynotes included: Janaina Stronzake with the MST in Brazil, Marian Kramer with Michigan Welfare Rights Union, and Jan Rehmann, professor at Union Theological Seminary and co-author of Pedagogy of the Poor. In addition to our guest keynotes, three leaders with the United Workers spoke about our work: Michael Coleman, Armando Tema, and Janice Watson. Here are some of the videos of these inspiring and rousing speeches. More to come!

Check out the Real News Network’s coverage of last week’s Fair Development Conference.

Pick up this week’s Baltimore City Paper or go online to read their article on the United Workers upcoming Fair Development Conference. In other news, the United Workers appeared on the Marc Steiner show with the Marian Kramer of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and Sarah Weintraub of the Vermont Worker Center. The two media pieces draw connections between Fair Development, the Occupy Movements and the nature of a system built on poverty and poverty-zone development. If you missed the Steiner show you can have a listen here.

Here’s an excerpt from the City Paper article:

From February’s labor protests in Wisconsin to the 99 percenters currently camping out in New York’s Zuccotti Park, populist protest is suddenly all the rage. But movements for social change are nothing new. Take, for example, the United Workers, a Baltimore-based coalition of low-wage workers formed in 2002. In 2007, the United Workers lobbied for “living wages” at Camden Yards—and got them. Since then, the group has been campaigning on behalf of workers at the Inner Harbor, trying to institutionalize rights to health care and education.

To raise awareness of these efforts, the group has a history of putting on political events that go beyond the strictly political. In the past, that has resulted in street-side theatrical performances, a community fair, and, in true activist tradition, plenty of marches. This weekend, Oct. 28-30, UW hosts the Fair Development Conference, a gathering of grassroots organizations, political activists, community organizers, and other interested parties from as far as Brazil and as near as Baltimore . . .

The workshops, lectures, and presentations planned for the conference will take on much more than just the struggle for the soul of the harbor. And although fair development is the organizing principle behind the conference, the topic is interpreted broadly enough to include discussions on universal health care, permaculture design, and lessons drawn from the 19th-century movement to abolish slavery. One workshop will explore Johns Hopkins Hospital’s fraught relationship with the Middle East neighborhood, where it displaced hundreds of residents to build a controversial—and moribund—biotech park; another will spotlight worker-led organizations that have successfully lobbied for Taco Bell, Whole Foods, and other food-industry giants to raise wages for the people who pick their tomatoes.

To read the full article, go to http://citypaper.com

The Media Mobilizing Project recently followed Tavis Smiley and Cornel West on a national Poverty Tour to make visible the plight and fight of the poor in the U.S. Last week, the Tavis Smiley show aired a five part series created by the Media Mobilizing Project encapsulating the stories, lessons, and struggles shared along this eye-opening journey. Ending on a truly inspiring note, the last segment focuses on groups and communities organizing to build a movement to end poverty. It includes interviews and discussion with The Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida, Domestic Workers United in New York, Direct Action Welfare Group in West Virginia and Iraq Veterans Against the War, The Vermont Workers Center, Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign and yours truly, the United Workers. Need a dose of inspiration? Check it out.

Watch The Poverty Tour Part 5 on PBS. See more from Tavis Smiley.

To learn more about the Media Mobilizing Project go here or come to their Saturday workshop at the Fair Development Conference.

To watch the rest of the videos in this series, go to http://www.pbs.org

The Sun has invited participants at the Occupy Baltimore protest in the Inner Harbor to contribute articles about their experience, views and goals. This entry is written by Clayton Conn, a photo/multimedia freelance journalist from Baltimore.

 Members of the United Workers, a Baltimore based human rights organization leading the fight for fair development — which respects human rights, maximizes public benefits and is sustainable — gave a workshop on Tuesday at the site of Occupy Baltimore.

The organization which is in the midst of a campaign for Fair Development in the Inner Harbor, spoke on the themes of jobs, privatization and economic human rights.

As critics continue to ask questions on the specific demands and goals of the Occupy Protests, the United Workers are among many groups locally and nationally providing concrete answers and strategies for solutions. In developing these answers, they will be hosting a Fair Development Conference at the end of this month (Fri. Oct 28-Sun. Oct. 30), with participants attending from around the world. The goals of this conference are to increase greater understanding of these challenging times, connect various fronts of struggle, share movement-building strategies and develop a collective vision for “fair development.”

Audio of the United Workers event is available here.

Like cities across the country, Baltimore has joined the Occupy Movement to highlight the growing inequality in this country and to rally the 99% to call for economic human rights for all. In Baltimore, the occupiers have chosen McKeldin Square at the Inner Harbor, the site where, on October 25, 2008, low-wage workers declared the Inner Harbor a “Human Rights Zone.” On the one week mark of the occupation, United Workers did a teach-in about the Human Rights Zone Campaign, connecting the Occupy Movement to the fight for Fair Development. Below is a video of Luis Larin with the United Workers speaking with those gathered before the General Assembly.

To see the video posted on Huffington Post, go here.

This summer, members of the Media Mobilizing Project (MMP) joined PBS broadcaster Tavis Smiley and Princeton professor, Dr. Cornel West along a US Poverty Tour that made stops in 18 cities across 11 states.

Starting today, October 10th and running through Friday, October 14th PBS’ Tavis Smiley will broadcast the results of this journey, a 5 part documentary called “Understanding Our Struggles and Changing Our Conditions:  A Poverty Tour Documentary.”

The United Workers took part in this tour and this 5 part documentary by sharing our stories of the human cost of Poverty-zone development on low-wage workers at the Inner Harbor and how this connects to the growing ranks of the poor across the country.

As an organization committed to building a movement led by the poor united across color lines, MMP sees media and communications as a vital tool in exposing the hidden stories of poverty and developing movement leaders. This groundbreaking documentary will show viewers the real-life effects of the ever widening divide between the rich and the poor in this country–and more importantly, how different organizations and individuals across the nation are fighting back.

Although the Tavis Smiley Show does not air in Baltimore, you can watch it online. It does air in Washington D.C. and eight other major cities. To see if the Smiley Show is airing in your area, go here.

The United Workers stopped by the Steiner Show studios today to discuss our recent Fair Development protest at the Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC) office, where we called attention to Cordish and the BDC’s closed-door meeting around a proposed 3 million dollar rent break for the harbor developer. As always, it was an engaging conversation ranging from BDC’s lack of transparency to Dr.King’s Poor People’s Campaign.

The Marc Steiner Show invited Cordish, the BDC, and the Mayor’s office on the show, but none of them accepted the invitation. Too bad because we would have loved the opportunity to ask the BDC in person whether they’d be open to a transparent process involving workers at the table to determine real improvements to the harbor that benefit all. Their declining to be on the show demonstrated yet again an unwillingness to engage workers and the public in a real dialogue around Fair Development. We might not have gotten a response to our question today, but they can’t hide behind closed-doors forever.

You can listen to the show by tuning in today, Thursday, August 4th, at 5 PM on 88.9 WEAA or you can listen to the podcast now online, http://www.steinershow.org

Read the Baltimore Brew’s coverage of yesterday’s Fair Development protest at the Baltimore Development Corporation offices. The Baltimore Brew had reported on the initial closed-door meeting between the BDC and Cordish in which the media had been kicked out half-way through.

A group representing low-wage workers staged a protest yesterday outside the offices of the Baltimore Development Corporation, demanding that the agency release details of a closed-door meeting last month in which developer David S. Cordish sought a $3 million rent break for his Inner Harbor properties.

“How is it fair he is asking for such a big break in rent and workers aren’t being paid a living wage and can’t pay their rent,” said Luis Larin, a leadership organizer with United Workers, as about 18 protesters picketed.

At that June 23rd meeting, first reported by Baltimore Brew, Cordish said his two Inner Harbor properties are in financial trouble and pledged to invest $16 million in return for the $3 million bailout. After deputy mayor Kaliope Parthemos ejected the Brew’s Mark Reutter and another reporter from that meeting, Cordish apparently elaborated and outlined his plans for his ailing Inner Harbor tourist properties, the Power Plant and Power Plant Live.

To read the full coverage, go to http://www.baltimorebrew.com

Check-out this video from today’s protest at the offices of the Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC) to call attention to a closed-door meeting held between the BDC and Inner Harbor developer, the Cordish Co. At this meeting, Cordish asked for a 3 million dollar rent break from the city to make surface improvements to the harbor. The sad irony is that while the BDC is recommending a 3 million dollar rent break for a multi-billion dollar company, low-wage workers at the harbor are struggling to meet their basic needs, including keeping a roof over their families heads. As harbor workers and allies picketed outside, a delegation successfully delivered a letter to the BDC requesting that all documents related to this back-room deal be made public. We look forward to their response.