Chaos in Charm City

All over the city, there are signs saying "Smile, you're in Baltimore." Last week the Baltimore Promotion Council launched a campaign to further enhance the city's image by declaring that Baltimore (pop. 900,000) would henceforth be known as "Charm City, U.S.A." The gesture was spectacularly ill-timed. Next day, Baltimore, which was already mired in a ten-day-old strike by 3,000 garbage collectors, zookeepers, jail guards and sewage workers, was hit with a police walkout that brought on sporadic looting and arson.

For ordinary citizens as well as for inmates in their cells and lions in their cages, it was a rough time to be in Baltimore. Ripening mounds of garbage, growing ever gamier in the hot summer sun, piled up next to the city's famed row houses. Temperatures in some jail cells rose as high as 110DEG, broiling the unsupervised inmates. Zoo officials started a rumor that they might have to slaughter small animals in order to feed larger ones. That persuaded union members to allow food to be brought in; but no manure was taken out, and it piled up at the rate of a ton a day. Along with the rank smells assaulting their noses, Baltimoreans faced a cacophony of wailing sirens, as fire engines raced after hundreds of trash fires and nonstriking patrolmen and state troopers chased down looters. In the first two days of the strike at least 200 stores were vandalized or looted.

Baltimore's breakdown began with the start of the new fiscal year on July 1. Garbage collectors belonging to Local 44 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees had ratified a new contract that raised their salaries by 20-c- to $3.42 an hour, but rank-and-file opposition developed. Demanding an additional 30-c- pay boost, two-thirds of the men stayed out; union leaders quickly capitulated and declared the wildcat strike to be official. In its second week, the strike spread to other public-works employees, who were inspired by the garbage collectors' example.

At first Baltimore police, who are also members of the AFSCME, limited their protest to a time-consuming slowdown, carefully measuring how many inches cars were parked from the curb and filling out lengthy lost-property reports for pennies picked up off the pavement. One cop took particular delight in ticketing the chauffeur of Mayor William D. Schaefer for changing lanes without signaling.

But then, understandably dissatisfied with their own wage scale of $8,761 to $11,082, the cops walked out, demanding that they too be given a wage increase larger than that provided in the budget. Although so-called "job actions" have kept cops off the beat in other cities, this was the first official strike by police in a major U.S. city since 1919 in Boston. Police-union officials claimed that 1,300 of Baltimore's 2,300 patrolmen had joined the strike, although the police commissioner insisted that only 600 were out. Picketing cops marched with signs that said: "My life is on the line, but not for 5.5%," the maximum pay increase offered by the city.

Verge of Chaos. "There is no money at all," said Mayor Schaefer, who has refused to consider higher pay boosts. "There is no city money, no state money and no federal money on the horizon." The plight of Baltimore, which has the lowest per capita income and highest property taxes in Maryland, is similar to that of many other major cities faced with increasingly rebellious public employees.

The AFSCME is the fastest-growing union in the AFL-CIO, and its militant leaders are determined to fight hard for higher pay for its 700,000 members. The union's goals appeal to municipal employees, especially policemen, who resent laws restricting the right of public servants to be on strike. Said one Baltimore cop with 17 years on the force: "I've bled for this city. I've been through riots and fires, but the people don't seem to care. Well, it's time they gave something back."

At week's end Baltimore was on the verge of chaos. Officers from plain-clothes and special divisions and riot-trained state troopers were on the streets, trying to keep looters under control. Negotiations resumed between city officials and Local 44, which was under a court injunction to end the strike and faces fines of $15,000 a day. "We've had problems before. We'll solve this one," insisted Schaefer. He was not prepared to say how it would be done.

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