In late April, Baltimore Orioles employees lost wages for an entire week. Two games were justifiably canceled and one was played in front of an empty Camden Yards stadium, while three others were moved to Tampa Bay where the Orioles acted as the home team. The cancelations were a direct result of civil unrest in Baltimore, from those protesting the death of Freddy Gray at the hands of alleged police brutality. Today those who lost wage are being repaid, as the Baltimore COO John Angelos released this statement.
Class act by Angelos family, paying employees for missed games. #Orioles @1057TheFan @JohnPAngelos @cbsbaltimore pic.twitter.com/y9W7RM8xqy
— Steve Davis (@SteveDavisBmore) May 13, 2015
This isn’t a surprising development. The Orioles organization has showed their support for the city of Baltimore, as the team wore Baltimore titled jersey’s during their first game back at Camden Yards after the protests.
We love our city. Tonight, the team is wearing specially-made Baltimore home jerseys. #OneBaltimore pic.twitter.com/Sn2gyDO3iw
— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) May 11, 2015
Angelos has been public with his thoughts on the protests, as he released this statement last week.
The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, and ultimate price, one that far exceeds the importance of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards.
We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the U.S., and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don’t have jobs and are losing economic, civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ballgame irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.
My greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle-class and working-class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good, hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.
According to Buzzfeed News, the employees are getting $200 for lost time from their employee union. One employee stated she sometimes makes more than that a day in tips, but the $200 for the week is “better than nothing.” Whether that’s a fair amount, it’s good to see Baltimore at least trying to amend things.
