Though the weather was scorching on June 8th in Baltimore, the hottest ideas in the city were found right inside the air-conditioned offices of 1199SEIU. Eight union activists from Australia came to town to talk with the 1199 team that's been working on the Heart of Baltimore campaign, which is fighting to win free and fair union elections for every local caregiver.
When the 1199 team described the Heart of Baltimore campaign to the Aussies, they responded with campaign stories from their union which, like SEIU, includes workers in health care, hospitality and property services. In fact, they applied many lessons from SEIU's Justice for Janitors campaign in creating their "Clean Start" campaign to win fair pay and benefits for Australian cleaners.
There are also similarities between the Heart of Baltimore campaign and the Australians' "Fair Share for Aged Care," a new campaign that is working to win stronger standards in that country's nursing homes. That campaign is focused on uniting workers in every facility of the 307 employers in Australia's residential aged care sector.
The campaign hinges on labor law reform that was passed by the Australian Labor government voted into office in 2007. Australian workers essentially won their equivalent of America's still-languishing Employee Free Choice Act and so now they're able to think even bigger.
Much of the discussion with the Australians took place over a classic Baltimore lunch of crabs and French fries (they call them "chips"). Vanessa Johnson, 1199SEIU Vice President for New Organizing in Maryland/DC, told the Australians about a citywide worker meeting the Heart of Baltimore campaign had just held. It was the first Baltimore-wide meeting of non-union healthcare workers in memory and caregivers in the meeting were struck by statistics showing how much less they earned than caregivers elsewhere on the East Coast.
Not coincidentally, few Baltimore healthcare workers belong to a union. After hearing those statistics, Johnson explained, the workers enthusiastically participated in break out sessions where they planned how to spread the word and organize in their facilities. The Australian visitors, though horrified by the poverty confronting many Baltimore caregivers, were heartened by the strategies the workers had begun crafting to improve their lives.
Learn more about the Heart of Baltimore campaign.
Originally posted at 1199SEIU.org here.
