{"id":12605,"date":"2015-01-07T09:40:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-07T09:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:/wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605///wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605//www.yesmagazine.org/wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605//article/wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605//commonomics-laid-off-baltimore-workers-beat-disney-in-court/wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605//"},"modified":"2019-11-26T00:56:10","modified_gmt":"2019-11-26T08:56:10","slug":"laid-off-baltimore-workers-beat-disney-in-court","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:/wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605///wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605//www.yesmagazine.org/wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605//economy/wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605//2015/wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605//01/wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605//07/wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605//laid-off-baltimore-workers-beat-disney-in-court","title":{"rendered":"Laid-Off Baltimore Workers Beat Disney in Court/wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605/u2014And Ask All the Right Questions About Urban Development"},"content":{"rendered":"/wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605/n
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Emanuel McCray is an army veteran with four combat tours under his belt. Despite his military service and his B.A. in political science, he, like many veterans, had a hard time finding work when he returned to civilian life in 2007. He felt pretty lucky when he finally found a position he loved, working as a host at ESPN Zone—a Disney-owned chain of sports bars. A sports fan, McCray prized the chance to interact with the many athletes who stopped in after games at the nearby stadiums. He hoped to move into management and thought that if he got a salaried position he’d make working at the restaurant his career./wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605/n

“It’s not justice, but it’s a huge victory.”/wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605/n

In June of 2010, when McCray had been at the restaurant for almost two years, he arrived at work to find his co-workers in tears. Rumors had leaked in the press that Disney was closing the restaurant because they weren’t making enough money. One week later, Emanuel’s restaurant, along with four other locations in the chain, shut its doors. Around 140 Baltimore workers were left without new jobs, without health care, and without wages and tips from the upcoming busy summer season that supported many of them through the slow winter./wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605/n

McCray felt betrayed by the owners for not telling employees about the closure directly, and for hiding the information for so long. Fair warning might have made it easier to find other restaurant jobs before the busy summer season was underway. “It was an emotional night. I was furious,” he remembers./wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605/n

As the closure approached, McCray remembers the company issuing orders to employees not to talk to the media under the threat of losing their severance packages. When severance checks did come, they were calculated based on the average earnings from the past six months, instead of the full year. That meant that they were paid based only on the slower winter months when workers were given fewer shifts and receive smaller tips, right at the beginning of what should have been the busiest time of the year./wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605/n

Baltimore’s Inner Harbor has been called “the model for post-industrial waterfront redevelopment around the world.”/wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605/n

McCray remembers feeling hopeless. But the night that the closure rumors leaked, he was greeted outside the restaurant by organizers from the United Workers, a local human rights organization led by low-wage workers. (Full disclosure: The author has worked with the UW in a volunteer capacity.) They invited McCray and his co-workers to a meeting with labor lawyers to discuss their rights. Several dozen ESPN Zone workers attended, where they learned that they might have recourse under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN, which requires large employers to give 60 days notice to employees before mass layoffs. McCray remembers the United Workers giving him a “glimmer of hope” that he and his co-workers might be treated fairly in the closure, with fair severance packages or some compensation for losing their jobs./wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605/n

The closure of the ESPN Zone was significant in Baltimore not just because of the loss of the individual jobs, but because of the restaurant’s place—literally—in Baltimore’s larger economic development strategy. The Baltimore ESPN Zone was located in the Power Plant development—a former power plant located on the shore of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor that housed businesses, stores, and offices. The harbor area, a gleaming waterfront promenade featuring parks, shops, restaurants, museums, and the National Aquarium, is the most visible and heralded piece of Baltimore’s redevelopment plan./wp-json/wp/v2/article/12605/n