“Now that the charges are out” against police offi­cers accused of crim­i­nal­i­ty in the death of 25-year-old Fred­die Gray, the con­ver­sa­tion should turn to ​“the lack of good jobs” for young African-Amer­i­cans like Gray, says Jer­maine Jones, busi­ness man­ag­er for Labor­ers Inter­na­tion­al Union Local 710.

With the city’s night­ly cur­few can­celled and some 4,000 Nation­al Guard troops and extra police begin­ning to with­draw in the wake of the protests and riots that marked the the death of Fred­die Gray, Bal­ti­more appears to be return­ing to nor­mal. But ​“nor­mal” in Bal­ti­more is part of the prob­lem for work­ers and low-income res­i­dents, accord­ing to labor and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, and now is a good time to address some of the eco­nom­ic issues under­ly­ing the unrest that brought nation­al and inter­na­tion­al atten­tion to the city over the last two weeks.

The fil­ing of crim­i­nal charges against six Bal­ti­more Police Depart­ment offi­cers May 1 has qui­et­ed protests against aggres­sive polic­ing of African-Amer­i­can neigh­bor­hoods, he says, but action is still nec­es­sary to alle­vi­ate the chron­ic unem­ploy­ment and pover­ty in those areas. Jones and oth­ers spoke out on this theme May 4 at a press con­fer­ence for the group One Bal­ti­more Unit­ed, a coali­tion of com­mu­ni­ty, faith and labor organizations.

The city’s elect­ed lead­ers, espe­cial­ly May­or Stephanie Rawl­ings-Blake, are guilty of ignor­ing the des­per­ate need for decent job oppor­tu­ni­ties in the city’s low-income neigh­bor­hoods, Jones says, and should adjust laws and reg­u­la­tions to encour­age more local hir­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly on con­struc­tion projects that get pub­lic fund­ing or spe­cial tax breaks. ​“There is a lot more that could be done,” to pro­mote, or require, local hir­ing, accord­ing to Jones.

The Labor­ers union has joined with some of the most promi­nent labor orga­ni­za­tions in the city to back the One Bal­ti­more coali­tion. Formed late last year, the group includes local and region­al AFL-CIO bod­ies, 1199SEIU heath care work­ers union, UNITE HERE Local 7, Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of State, Coun­ty and Munic­i­pal Employ­ees (AFSCME), Amal­ga­mat­ed Tran­sit Union Local 1300 and the City Union of Bal­ti­more (affil­i­at­ed with the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Teach­ers). The unions joined with NAACP, Casa de Mary­land, Mary­land Work­ing Fam­i­lies, Unit­ed Work­ers, and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty and faith-based groups to form the nucle­us of the coalition.

The coali­tion seeks to cre­ate an alter­na­tive to the trick­le-down mod­el through com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ing aimed at mas­sive invest­ment in afford­able hous­ing and job cre­ation, Todd Cherkis, a spokesper­son for Unit­ed Work­ers, explains. Dif­fer­ent labor and faith groups have been advo­cat­ing around these issues for years, he notes, but One Bal­ti­more is ​“intend­ed to get the dis­parate groups work­ing in tan­dem as a response to wors­en­ing con­di­tions in the city.”

Cherkis tells In These Times that the issues of job oppor­tu­ni­ty and improved hous­ing are close­ly relat­ed. ​“We esti­mate that there are 40,000 vacant hous­ing units in the city,” many of which are aban­doned build­ings now con­trolled by munic­i­pal agen­cies, he says. Reha­bil­i­ta­tion of these hous­ing units could cre­ate thou­sands of jobs and also alle­vi­ate the short­age of low-income housing.

“Our city lead­ers rely on a trick­le-down approach. The idea is that the mar­ket­place will take care of our prob­lems. Well, that’s just not work­ing out,” Cherkis says.

Also speak­ing at the May 4 press con­fer­ence was Latisha Lyles, a Star­bucks employ­ee and union activist with UNITE HERE Local 7. Refer­ring to the numer­ous peace­ful protests in Bal­ti­more, she stat­ed: ​“This is the first time I’ve seen Bal­ti­more come togeth­er to stand up for the right things. It gives me hope. … We need good jobs, good schools and oppor­tu­ni­ties for our­selves and our kids.”

Promi­nent in show­ing sup­port for Jus­tice for Fred­die Gray cam­paign has been 1199SEIU’s Maryland‑D.C. Region, whose local mem­bers are large­ly African-Amer­i­can hos­pi­tal work­ers. The union even orga­nized a clean-up crew to sweep up bro­ken glass and oth­er debris in the riot-strick­en neigh­bor­hood of Sandtown-Winchester.

Echo­ing the crit­i­cism of elect­ed city lead­ers by Jones and Cherkis is Char­ly Carter, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Mary­land Work­ing Fam­i­lies, a labor-backed group with a grow­ing involve­ment in elec­toral pol­i­tics. Crit­i­cism of May­or Rawl­ings-Blake for her han­dling of the riot­ing has been heard well out­side of Bal­ti­more, she says, but has been espe­cial­ly sharp at home.

“There’s a sense that there is blood in the water” as far as Rawlings-Blake’s polit­i­cal future is con­cerned, she says. Polit­i­cal maneu­ver­ing is already under­way ahead of the 2016 may­oral elec­tion, says Carter, and Mary­land Work­ing Fam­i­lies intends to be active in pro­mot­ing pro-work­er poli­cies as the elec­tion­eer­ing plays out.

The One Bal­ti­more coali­tion was formed last year, she tells In These Times, not as a polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion to pro­mote par­tic­u­lar can­di­dates, but more from a sense that cur­rent neolib­er­al eco­nom­ic poli­cies of the city gov­ern­ment are fail­ing. For exam­ple, the group made its pub­lic debut late last year in a protest against rumored plans to pri­va­tize the city’s water system.

For the Labor­ers’ Jones, the need for action is imme­di­ate. The union has trained sev­er­al hun­dred city res­i­dents in its pre-appren­tice­ship pro­gram, he said, and ​“we want a com­mit­ment from the city” to help find jobs for those work­ers. Exist­ing reg­u­la­tions offer gap­ing loop­holes for real-estate devel­op­ers to bring in employ­ees from out­side the region, he says, and these loop­holes can be closed. Labor unions stand ready to do their part in help­ing Bal­ti­more recov­er, he says, but they need a com­mit­ment from city offi­cials to do likewise.