Trabajadores Unidos

Last Thursday, 40  students from Union Theological Seminary and leaders from the Poverty Initiative kick started “Occupy the Malls” with a creative flash mob at GGP’s Gallery Mall. Inspired by the biblical story of Jesus cleansing the temple of thieving money changers, this group of faith leaders “cleansed” this temple of consumerism through song and prayer. Disrupting business as usual, they burst into the spiritual, “Get on Board,” calling on workers, shoppers, and GGP to get on board with human rights. The flash mob ended with a prayer circle and reflection at the entrance to GGP’s mall.

In her blog entry entitled the “Cathedrals of Inequality,” Union Theological Seminary student, Valerie Freseman, reflects on the power of this action.

For six minutes today, however, we started to chip at the facade of this false cathedral. Those who are consumers at that mall and those who are workers became a bit more visible to one another- and to me, our action was almost the same as throwing the money changers out of the temple.”

To read the full entry, go here

“Occupy the Malls” calls on allies to stage creative flash mobs and actions at GGP malls in solidarity with low-wage workers at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Last Thursday’s prayerful flash mob was an incredible kick-off to “Occupy the Malls” and demonstrated the imaginative and unique possibilities that allies from all backgrounds can bring to the fight for Fair Development. Great work to the Poverty Initiative and all for an outstanding demonstration of solidarity and vision.

As the second largest mall owner in the country, GGP has properties all over. So no matter where you are, there’s likely a mall near you! Break out your creative cap and stand with harbor workers by staging your own Occupy the Malls flash mob. To learn more how you can take part, email info@unitedworkers.org.

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!

On Monday, November 17, Occupy Movement activists held a public meeting on the steps of the Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC) to discuss the lack of human rights standards and public participation in the allocation of public money towards economic development in Baltimore. Organizers of this event invited Rev. Heber Brown of Pleasant Hope Baptist Church, Benn Ray with Bmore Local, and Juan Paredes with the United Workers to speak about the human cost of decades of poverty-zone development on residents, small businesses, and workers. We stand in solidarity with the aims of the Occupy Movement and appreciated the opportunity to talk about the fight for Fair Development at the Inner Harbor. President of the BDC, “Jay” Brodie attended this public meeting, listened to testimony from community members, and responded to the crowd. He promised the crowd continued dialogue. Check out the video from this powerful action.

Below is audio for most of the Fair Development Conference Workshops. To read descriptions about the different workshops click here. To download any of the audio files in MP3 format click here.

Fair Development Conference: Block 1

Fair Development Conference: Block 2

Fair Development Conference: Block 3

Fair Development Conference: Block 4

Wow! What a powerful weekend. From Brazil to Detroit, more than 400 social movement activists and grassroots organizers participated in the Fair Development Conference to connect local struggles to a growing global movement for economic human rights and justice. Participants converged in Baltimore to take part in discussions, workshops and actions to build solidarity across issues of social, economic and environmental justice ranging from universal healthcare to anti-war organizing, all under the banner of “fair development for everyone.”

Check out the website for videos and photos posted over the course of the weekend

It was truly an inspiring event, from beginning to end. From the first night where we started by sharing a meal together to build community and listen to six commanding and clear keynote speakers set the tone and call to action for the collective task of building a global movement to end poverty for all.

Videos of the speeches are forthcoming.

On Saturday, over 40 grassroots, cultural, community, and labor leaders and groups presented in 24 workshops to exchange strategies and solutions for building power to put forward alternative visions of economic development based on fair development principles of respecting human rights, maximizing public benefits, and sustainability. The Fair Development Conference created a space for in-depth dialogue on how to stop private corporations and banks from reaping unprecedented profits as the economic crisis continues to ravage communities across the globe.

In a workshop entitled, “Resource Grabs,” we heard from Adam Hall of the Keeper of the Mountains Foundation discuss the devastating effects that mountain top removal has had on the level of poverty and health of communities in West Virginia, including his family farm that had extended back generations and generations. The Vermont Workers Center shared insights into what led to their successful Healthcare is a Human Right Campaign. Marisela Gomez, former director of the Save Middle East Action Committee (SMEAC), gave a thorough presentation on the history of Johns Hopkins controversial redevelopment of East Baltimore that led to unprecedented displacement of residents.

If you came to the Fair Development Conference and just couldn’t go to every workshop you were interested in or if you just missed the conference, have no fear. Our amazing internal media team audio recorded just about every session. We will be posting all these soon, so be on the lookout.

Baltimore is a great example of how development affects ordinary people’s lives and on Sunday, we focused our attention on one of those examples, the Inner Harbor. Over 150 harbor workers, grassroots allies, and community members gathered for the “Haunted Harbor March.” See photos and from this playful and dramatic action.

After two days of amazing conversations, presentations, and workshops with social movement activists and organizers from all over the country and the globe, we closed the Fair Development Conference by taking that energy and spirit to the Inner Harbor.

On the eve of Halloween, harbor workers, grassroots allies, conference goers, and community members gathered to take part in telling the story of, “The Haunted Harbor: A Terrifying Tale of Poverty-Zone Development.” Dressed as zombie developers, ghosts of “poverty wages” and “disrespect,” and the protagonists of this story, the “Poverty Busters,” we took to the harbor making stops along the way to perform our play and hear from harbor workers and grassroots allies from the Baltimore Algebra Project, Occupy Baltimore, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the Keeper of the Mountains Foundation, Vermont Workers Center, Media Mobilizing Project, and the Poverty Initiative.

It was an incredible action, but the most powerful moment came when after three years of being denied access to march through our harbor, we took the promenade along the Inner Harbor in full view of workers and consumers. We stopped in the ampitheater in the center of Harborplace to tell the real story of the harbor, the story that is hidden, made invisible, but that workers know all too well. As Raquel Rojas, former Cheesecake Factory cook, recounted the wage theft and sexual harassment she experienced and witnessed, workers congregated on the balconies and at doorways to hear her story. Emboldened by our actions, we marched to the Cheesecake Factory where we stopped and chanted so all could hear our demands for worker dignity.

As we came to our final stop at the former location of the ESPN Zone and the new location of Phillips Seafood, one of the worst human rights violators in the harbor, it was a bittersweet moment. It was a bittersweet moment, because in the tale we performed, we as “Poverty Busters” had zapped the human rights abuses out of this dimension, freeing the harbor from the ghosts of poverty-zone development. But as we emerged from our playful fantasy, we knew the human rights abuses still existed and the harbor had yet to be transformed into a Human Rights Zone. We know that the road to Fair Development is long and has and will continue to require commitment, leadership and effective grassroots organizing to release the heart of our city from the shackles of poverty-zone development. It was also a bittersweet moment because the Fair Development Conference had officially come to an end and it was time to say good-bye to friends both new and old. We had shared and learned so much over the course of the weekend, we were inspired by the many stories of struggle and victory, reaffirming our collective commitment to building a united movement to create a just and equitable world for all.

Over 150 people gathered at St. Johns Church (2640) for the first night of the Fair Development Conference. The night began with people slowly trickling in, but soon filled the church space by the time the keynote speakers hit the stage. A musical trio opened up the conference with serenading sounds of justice and peace. Soon to follow was the main event of six, that’s right six keynote speakers, weaving a collective quilt illuminating not only the plight of the poor, but the fight of the poor in fighting for Fair Development and building a movement capable of ending poverty in the face of the growing economic crisis and deprivation for the many. Although stories ranged from the struggle here at Camden Yards and the Inner Harbor to the struggle for land in Brazil, privatization of public resources in Detroit and beyond, strip-mining in Guatemala, and the growing gap between the expanding poor and rich, they told a collective story of workers coming together to globalize the struggle for human rights, hope and dignity.

See photos from the first day here:

In preparation for participants to arrive to St. Johns Church to hear the Keynote speakers, the United Workers takes a moment to come together in a Unity Circle to express love, gratitude and leadership for each other and all those that will join them today.

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.

Did you know that the UN led a human rights investigation into the state of housing in America?  Learn all about it at the Fair Development Conference, at the dinner, panel, and film screening presented by the The National Economic and Social Rights Initiative. The documentary More Than A Roof follows the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing on her journey through the areas of the US hit hardest by the housing crisis. More than a Roof is ending a month-long national film tour in Baltimore at the Fair Development Conference! So, don’t miss this exciting opportunity.

Watch the trailer to get a sneak peek of some of the voices and stories that you will hear at Saturday evening’s special event.

After the screening, we’ll hear from some of the very same grassroots groups featured in the film. Max Rameau, Co-founder of the Take Back the Land Movement, Kendall Jackman from Picture the Homeless, Frank Sindaco from Northeast Pennsylvania Organizing Center  and others will discuss the U.S. housing crisis and how communities are demanding their human right to housing.

Dinner starts at 5pm on Saturday, October 29th!

Then after the panel, don’t miss the costume dance party from 7 – 10PM!

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.

Participate in making the Fair Development Conference possible! We are looking for volunteers to help with everything from set-up to childcare to planning Sunday’s action. Pitch in for a few hours, or the whole weekend.

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.

This week the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW)  kicked off their Trader Joe’s Northeast Tour in Baltimore. Together, the CIW, United Workers, and community allies hit up our local Trader Joe’s, which happens to be located in one of GGP’s many malls, the Towson Town Center. It was an interesting physical intersection of the Campaign for Fair Food and the fight for Fair Development.

To see more from the photo report from this action and to follow the tour, go to http://www.ciw-online.org

An interesting recent feature in Baltimore’s City Paper took a skeptical look at the legacy of the Inner Harbor and other development projects spearheaded by the late William Donald Schaeffer, one time Governor of Maryland and Mayor of Baltimore. Compelled to raise the voices of harbor workers in any discussion regarding the legacy of the Inner Harbor, United Workers ally, Jonathan Rochkind, wrote into the City Paper highlighting the human cost of this poverty-zone for the people who work there and the communities we live in. You can read the response below or visit the City Paper website, http://citypaper.com

In his review of William Donald Schaefer’s legacy (“Saint or Sinner?” Feature, May 11), Edward Ericson Jr. is rightly critical of the limited public benefit from billions invested in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and downtown tourist district. While sold to the public as spearheading an economic revitalization to compensate for lost manufacturing jobs, in fact most of the service jobs at the Inner Harbor are about as terrible as a job can get: extremely low-wage, seasonal, in degrading and humiliating working environments. A report released this month, “Hidden in Plain Sight: Workers at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and the Struggle for Fair Development” (Google it!) from the United Workers, a Baltimore human rights organization led by low-wage workers, reveals that many workers at the Inner Harbor are treated with routine disrespect by their employers and are paid rock-bottom wages not sufficient to support a family above the poverty line, without even being able to rely on steady year-round work.

This kind of poverty-zone development benefiting only private developers and not Baltimore’s workers is not what Baltimore residents over the past decades were told they’d be getting for their public investment. It’s past time we refuse to stand for it, and instead demand that jobs in our Inner Harbor be dignified and dependable ones that don’t leave workers requiring public assistance to eat and pay their rent. The United Workers are demanding that the Inner Harbor developers—General Growth Properties and the Cordish Companies, recipients of so much public development largesse—guarantee that Inner Harbor jobs come with a living wage and health and education benefits, and that Inner Harbor employers treat workers with respect and dignity. Ericson notes that Schaefer’s harbor tourist development inspired cities across the country to subsidize development of demeaning low-wage service jobs to replace lost dependable manufacturing jobs; it’s time for Baltimore to set a different example and demonstrate a fair development model instead.

To read the feature article, “Saint of Sinner,” that this is in response to, go to http://citypaper.com

Looks like Benton Harbor developers are taking a page out of the Inner Harbor’s poverty-zone manual. Musician, independent journalist, and United Workers ally, Ryan Harvey just recently wrote an article for thruthout.org about Benton Harbor, Michigan, a community that is in a battle against recent legislation that strips communities of democratic decision-making powers. As a part of a recent wave of controversial legislation sweeping the nation’s states, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder passed the Emergency Financial Management bill, giving “Emergency Financial Managers” (EFMs) the ability to suspend entire elected bodies of municipalities they deem to be failing. Benton Harbor has been deemed one of those municipalities. By denying community participation, this legislation facilitates a massive shift of public resources towards the private gain of corporations and developers without ensuring public benefits to all of Benton Harbor residents.

Here’s where the plot thickens. Many Benton Harbor residents see this new law as a way to push through an unfavorable “Harbor Shores” development plan that would turn the communities once public beach into a luxury gulf resort. Despite promises of jobs and economic revitalization, many residents are worried that the jobs created will be poverty wage jobs with little benefits that will exacerbate not alleviate the problem of increasing poverty in Benton Harbor. Harvey makes the connection between the struggle in Benton Harbor to the fight for Fair Development at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, including an interesting GGP connection. To read the full article, go to http://www.truth-out.org

The company in charge of developing Harbor Shores, Evergreen Development, was formed in 2005 in anticipation of the project. Evergreen’s Chief Financial Officer Jeffery Gilbertson is the former senior director of Financial Operations, International at General Growth Properties (GGP), one of the largest mall owners in the United States.

While Gilbertson was joining up with Evergreen in 2008, his former employer, after amassing $27 billion in debt, was filing what has been called the largest real estate bankruptcy in US history.(20)

Meanwhile, workers at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor were announcing a major campaign against GGP, which parallels the fight in Benton Harbor in many ways. A new report released this week shines light on these issues and perhaps puts the Harbor Shores project in Benton Harbor under a new light.

“The Inner Harbor,” the report reads, “has become a glaring example of poverty zone development, with low-quality jobs and abusive wages and conditions. As in other poverty zone developments, the private developers – General Growth Properties and Cordish Companies – and their investors insisted on secure profits through access to public subsidies and advantageous leases with the vendors who run the businesses in the development.”

That might sound all too familiar to the residents of Benton Harbor.

We’ve got a little more than a week to go before the release of the report “Hidden in Plain Sight” on Wednesday, May 4th. In anticipation of the release, we’ll be making our way up to New York this Thursday for a Fair Development Forum to share stories of what it is like to work at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and how harbor workers are leading the fight for fair development.

But more than anything, we’re excited to hear from an amazing line-up of panelist who have a lot to say about poverty, development, and human rights: Peter Marcuse, Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning at Columbia University in New York City; Domestic Workers United, who just recently won a historic victory with the Domestic Worker’s Bill of Rights; Chandra Bhatnagar, a Staff Attorney with the Human Rights Program at the ACLU; Lorena Watler with Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE), a Brooklyn-based grassroots organization that has been organizing for responsible, community-led economic development; and Vanessa Cardinale from the Poverty Initiative and Trinity Lutheran Church.

We know that New York is hot-bed of ideas with academics, grassroots labor organizers, human rights activists, faith leaders, students, community leaders, artists and activists. We have so much to learn from each other by exchanging ideas, successes, and challenges faced by those fighting for fair development and an end to poverty and exploitation. So we hope you’ll join us in adding your voice to this important Fair Development Forum!

The United Workers and the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) are just weeks from releasing “Hidden in Plain Sight,” a report that takes a behind the scenes look at the human cost of Poverty-Zone Development at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. In conjunction with the release of the report, United Workers is holding a series of forums to connect the fight for Fair Development at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor to other struggles at the intersection of poverty, development, and human rights.

The Poverty Initiative will be hosting a Fair Development Forum in New York, where harbor workers and leaders will share stories of systemic human rights abuses, present some of the findings from the report and describe a model for organizing service-sector workers in branded spaces and malls. After comments from experts in the field of human rights advocacy, faith, and grassroots organizing, we will facilitate a discussion about how Poverty-Zone Development impacts communities across the country, what communities are doing to organize and put forward an alternative vision that respects human rights, maximizes public benefits, and is sustainable.

Join us for an exciting evening with food, presentations, and engaging dialogue!

What: Fair Developement Forum NYC
When: Thursday, April 28th 6PM-9PM
Where: Union Theological Seminary- Room AD30, 3041 Broadway, New York, NY 10027

Join students, faith leaders, artists, media makers, community organizers and United Workers leaders in our next Strategic Dialogue! Last December, the United Workers kicked off a series of Strategic Dialogues to involve allies in high level conversations about the Campaign for Fair Development, to build a broader analysis around the problems that affect us, and discuss how all of us can be effective leaders in the movement to secure economic human rights for all.

At this next Strategic Dialogue, we’ll examine the exciting uprisings and protests in Tunisia, Egypt, and Wisconsin, draw the connections to our struggles, and discuss what these examples can teach us about what it is going to take to build a movement to end poverty. We’ll also break-out into groups to begin laying the groundwork for working committees around Media & Culture, Faith, and Leadership Development. These committees are an opportunity for allies to work closely with the United Workers in the fight for Fair Development. All are invited and encouraged to participate in this initial conversation regardless of their participation in the committee. So come be a part of yet another critical and engaging dialogue about how together we can make human rights history!

What: Strategic Dialogue #3
When: Saturday, April 16th, 10:30 AM-2:30 PM
Where: 2640 St. Paul St., Baltimore, MD 21218
*Lite breakfast and lunch provided

To RSVP, call 410-230-1998 or email ashley@unitedworkers.org