The United Workers Association is a human rights organization led by low-wage workers in Maryland in the United States. The organization was founded in 2002 by a group of homeless men and women in Baltimore. In 2004 the United Workers Association launched a campaign to secure living wages at the Oriole Park at Camden Yards, targeting Baltimore Orioles team owner Peter Angelos by demanding that he pay cleaners a living wage.
In 2007 the United Workers Association won its demand for living wages at Camden Yards. On August 15, 2007 the organization announced that 11 workers and 4 allies would go on hunger strike starting September 3, 2007. Governor Martin O'Malley responded by announcing his support of living wages at the stadium, and on September 3, 2007 the hunger strike was postponed, pending an upcoming meeting of the Maryland Stadium Authority. On September 6, 2007 the Maryland Stadium Authority voted to pay cleaners the Maryland state living wage rate of $11.30 an hour, up from the current $7.00 an hour. Later that day the United Workers Association announced that the hunger strike was called off in response to the victory.
Famous quotes containing the words united, workers and/or association:
“So here they are, the dog-faced soldiers, the regulars, the fifty-cents-a-day professionals riding the outposts of the nation, from Fort Reno to Fort Apache, from Sheridan to Stark. They were all the same. Men in dirty-shirt blue and only a cold page in the history books to mark their passing. But wherever they rode and whatever they fought for, that place became the United States.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“... work is only part of a man’s life; play, family, church, individual and group contacts, educational opportunities, the intelligent exercise of citizenship, all play a part in a well-rounded life. Workers are men and women with potentialities for mental and spiritual development as well as for physical health. We are paying the price today of having too long sidestepped all that this means to the mental, moral, and spiritual health of our nation.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“They that have grown old in a single state are generally found to be morose, fretful and captious; tenacious of their own practices and maxims; soon offended by contradiction or negligence; and impatient of any association but with those that will watch their nod, and submit themselves to unlimited authority.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)