Submitted on Wed, 04/29/2009 - 9:04am
Ten people from Pittsburgh traveled to Baltimore on April 18, 2009
for a B’More Fair and a Human Rights March hosted by the United Workers
Association (UWA). The United Workers Association is the Human Rights
Organization that organized the Camden Yards cleaners, part time
workers, “temporary” workers hired through a contractor, by putting
pressure on Maryland’s Stadium Authority and Peter Angelos, owner of
the Baltimore Oriels Baseball Club. They coined the terms “SweatFree
Baseball” in reference to the sweatshop working conditions at Camden
Yards at the same time as the Pittsburgh Anti Sweatshop Community
Alliance (PASCA) coined the term in reference to its demand that the
Pittsburgh Pirates accept the testimony of sweatshop workers sewing
Pirates apparel. The UWA came to Pittsburgh for the All Star Game in
2006 and joined with PASCA to make the demand that our local baseball
teams respect the Human Rights of all workers.
The UWA interviewed 150 workers at three restaurants in Baltimore’s
Inner Harbor development. The interviews demonstrated systemic
violations of workers’ rights such as poverty wages and sexual
harassment. The UWA has begun to process these worker rights violations
by using the International Declaration of Human Rights like a union
contract. By declaring the Inner Harbor a Human Rights Zone, the
restaurant bosses, the developer, the public officials who provided
subsidies to the Inner Harbor developers and the Baltimore community is
made aware that the workers know and intend to exercise their Human
Rights to remedy violations of their rights.
The enforcement of workers’ Human Rights is different from
traditional union organizing in that it emphasizes workers knowing
their rights and exercising them rather than a union contract. The
emphasis is not on achieving a union contract but on the community of
workers that educate one another and provide support to one another on
a daily basis.
Submitted on Fri, 07/11/2008 - 2:56am
BALTIMORE, MD -- Several hundred flyers were delivered to potential
Starbucks customers about Starbucks' unfair labor practices in Michigan, Spain,
New York, and other locations on July 5, 2008 as part of the Global Day of
Action in support of Starbucks workers. Baltimore GMB members, supported by
IWWs in town from Pittsburgh, Providence, and other cities, were invovled in the
action, along with members of NEFAC, and several other organizations. Free
coffee was distributed from Red Emma's coffeehouse and bookstore, an IWW job
shop, while the police looked on.
Submitted on Wed, 05/09/2007 - 3:29am
The author of this article is not a member of the IWW, and the do not necessarily support our organization or this campaign.
By Ed Ericson Jr. - City Paper OnLine, May 9, 2007
It's day three of the union at Joe's Bike Shop in Mount Washington, and owner Joe Traill steps outside to say that nothing has changed "so far."
Traill wears a worried look and chooses his words carefully so he won't sound too defensive. On May 1 he learned that all 10 of his employees had joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)--the storied Wobblies.
"My guess is the significance of May Day was not lost on them," he says.
The IWW formed in 1905, and while it never numbered more than about 200,000 members, its radical influence is still felt today. Wobblies got the eight-hour day for lumberjacks, put backbone in the dockworkers unions, integrated racially and across gender lines, were imprisoned for sedition, and were lynched. Legendary leftists like Big Bill Haywood, Mother Jones, and Joe Hill were red-card-carrying Wobblies, and the men and women of the rank and file were tough, fearless class warriors fighting mine barons and government repression.
And now all that history is falling on Traill's head.
Josh Keogh, who has worked at Joe's Bike Shop for seven years and says he'd like to work there indefinitely, led the union effort. He is 23 years old and only one credit from graduating with a bachelor's degree in American studies from the University of Maryland. Unlike many students, he is not saddled with student loans in the five or six digits. "There was plenty of money in the family to put me through College Park," he says.
Keogh says he really likes his boss.
"He's really been somewhat of a mentor to me--he hired me when I was like 15 years old," Keogh says. "But this is more about what we think is fair and what we think is just and how we're going to go about getting it."
Keogh says the top wage at the shop is $32,000 a year, with no health benefits. The full-timers with health insurance get $12 an hour, he says, which is about the going rate at bike shops.
Wages aren't the issue so much as information and consistency, Keogh says. "Part of what we're looking for is more transparency in business practices. Obviously nobody here wants Joe to go out of business, [but] we don't really know what he can pay us." He says the union has asked Traill to open his business records in preparation for negotiations. Unlike other unions, the IWW doesn't go in for contracts with no-strike clauses, so the ball is in Traill's court. The business review will come "after summer--after the busy season," Keogh says.
And so things go on as they always have at Joe's, except now there's a bright class distinction between Joe and everyone else who works there. Traill, who bought the shop in 1999, says he doesn't think anyone in his family has any experience with a union--either as a member or as management. He says he "barely" graduated high school.
For now, Traill plans to "wait and see," he says. "I don't know what else to do. This is a new experience for me."
Submitted on Thu, 05/03/2007 - 2:41pm
All of the ten employees at the Mt. Washington Bike Shop have joined the Industrial Workers of the World, one of the oldest and most storied unions in our country. The workers have taken these actions in order to secure and improve their jobs in the “best bicycle shop” in Baltimore.
The demands by the union center largely around the lack of employee policy. Before the union there was no system for scheduled raises, sick days, or vacation policy. Decisions were the sole prerogative of the boss. Now a reasonable consensus must be reached regarding these important factors of running a business.
“I feel a sense of empowerment,” says Johnny May, one of the full time employees at Joe’s Bike Shop. “ The union has given me a more active role as a more active role as a worker.”
The Mt. Washington Bike Shop workers have chosen to affiliate with the Industrial Workers of the World because they are an organization that is dedicated to shop floor democracy. “There are no professional organizers telling us what is in our best interest. Every member is an organizer, every member is a leader.” says Josh Keogh, another full time worker.
While a local small business might seem a odd place for a union, full time worker Kris Auer makes it clear that “It is not a direct attack on the owner; it is a step toward securing my future.”
Joe’s will join Red Emma’s, Baltimore’s radical bookstore and coffee shop, as the second IWW shop in baltimore. Both workplaces anticipate this federation of industrial democracies will grow and prosper in the near future.
For more information about the Mt. Washington Bike Shop Workers Union, or to schedule an interview please call Josh Keogh at 410-627-3715, or email
jskeogh (at) umd.edu