Dodging thunderstorms to get here, Danny Glover arrived at the climax of Thursday’s Rally for Better Care and Better Jobs and electrified the crowd with an impassioned speech about the Heart of Baltimore campaign.

More than 800 healthcare workers and supporters rallied in Mount Vernon Square Park to hear Glover, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, 1199SEIU President George Gresham and healthcare workers themselves talk about the need to win free and fair union elections for every healthcare worker.

Glover spoke about the injustice of caregivers struggling to get by on poverty pay, and he told the inspirational story of his own parents, postal workers who won a better life by joining the union.

The rally garnered intense media attention. TV coverage kicked off at 5:30 in the morning with WMAR’s live interview of 1199SEIU member Tara Johnson, a housekeeper at Rock Glen Nursing Home, and the Baltimore Sun wrote a powerful story about the rally in Friday’s paper.

Health care workers rally for better benefits, wages
June 24, 2010 - Andrea Walker

Danny Glover in Baltimore for Health Care Rally
June 24, 2010

Interview with Danny Glover (Rally Discussion at 16:40 in Podcast)
June 23, 2010 – The Marc Steiner Show

Mayor, Danny Glover to participate in Baltimore health care rally June 24, 2010 – Emily Mullin

Danny Glover Joins City Healthcare Workers in Rally for Improvement June 16, 2010

Health care workers rally for better pay, more rights June 24, 2010 – Giselle Chang

Click to read more ...

Building up to our massive rally on June 24th, we've been running newspaper and radio ads that feature celebrity supporters of our Heart of Baltimore campaign. Actor and activist Danny Glover and writer and performer Anna Deavere Smith, a Baltimore native, recently recorded a powerful radio ad.

Hear the radio ad

The ad is playing non-stop on a range of stations, including Magic 95.9, 92Q and Heaven 600-WCAO. The Heart of Baltimore also has sponsorships playing on WEAA and WYPR.
 
To further promote our rally, we ran full page ads in the Afro-American and the Baltimore Times last week, and we are running a full page ad in the Baltimore Sun this Wednesday.

In addition to Glover and Deavere Smith, the newspaper ads feature celebrity supporters Charles Dutton, Lewis Black and the Madden Brothers from the popular rock group Good Charlotte.

See the newspaper ad



Baltimore County and Baltimore City don't always see eye to eye on everything. But this week the Baltimore County Council joined their counterparts in the City and voted to endorse Free and Fair Union Elections for every local healthcare worker.

In a 6-0 vote, the County Council passed a resolution "urging Baltimore County healthcare institutions and employers to support family-sustaining jobs" and backing "the right of these workers to a fair union election." The Baltimore City Council passed a similar resolution in October.

As in the city, healthcare is Baltimore County’s biggest industry, employing 15 percent of workers, so raising job standards in healthcare would help create more middle class jobs and strengthen the county’s economy.

Read the full press release and resolution here.

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On Thursday, June 24, healthcare workers from across Baltimore will join together with 1199SEIU members to rally for better care, better jobs and a better Baltimore.
 
We'll be joined by actor and activist Danny Glover and other special guests, and the rally will feature activities for kids and entertainment for the whole family.
 
Healthcare is Baltimore's biggest industry, so by rallying to raise job standards in healthcare we can raise living standards across the city.

Join us at our rally!

Our vision for a better Baltimore is featured in Tuesday’s Baltimore Sun. In this article on the Sun’s commentary page, 1199SEIU executive vice president John Reid shows how low pay in Baltimore’s hospitals and nursing homes is hurting the whole city. That’s because healthcare is now the city’s biggest industry, employing one in five Baltimore workers.

Reid describes how we’re working in the Heart of Baltimore campaign to improve health care—and health care jobs—throughout the city. “When Baltimore’s health care employers start working together with their employees,” Reid writes, “we’ll be able to break the vicious cycle that’s impoverishing caregivers and weakening our city.”

Read the story.

Sign our petition and make a difference for healthcare workers right now. The petition calls on local healthcare CEOs to allow free and fair union elections for every caregiver.