Ballpark workers to protest tonight for higher wages

Baltimore Sun ^ | 6-17-05 | Justin Fenton

[JZelle]

Just before the start of this year's baseball season, the group representing workers who clean up the peanut shells and plastic beer cups at Oriole Park at Camden Yards thought they had reached a breakthrough on getting higher salaries.

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Not only had the United Workers Association persuaded the Maryland Stadium Authority to bring in a new contractor that pledged better wages and better treatment, the workers said that Orioles owner and labor champion Peter G. Angelos had personally phoned the group to say he would help.

"I thought it was just a tremendous thing that he was willing to do," said Peter Sabonis, a lawyer who represented the group at the time and had spoken to Angelos. "It would have sent shock waves through the Inner Harbor and Baltimore service center. It would have set a new standard."

But what exactly Angelos meant when he said he would help remains in dispute between the two sides. The workers, feeling slighted at not getting as much money as they had hoped, are planning to protest tonight outside the ballpark.

Roger Hayden, the Orioles director of ballpark operations, said that Angelos wanted to help the workers get more competitive wages. In March, a new facilities management contractor agreed to raise their wages to $7 an hour, well above the federal minimum wage of $5.15.

[Hank Rearden]

"United Workers Association"?

That sounds like a Warner Bros. cartoon union.

[A Balrog of Morgoth]

the group representing workers who clean up the peanut shells and plastic beer cups

Sounds like one of those jobs that "Americans won't do".