The strikers have spread blue tarps on the ground, in the shade of small trees. A few of them nap there. A dozen others are marching in a circle in the laundry plant's driveway, chanting along with a bullhorn in English and Spanish. The firm collects and cleans soiled linens and other washing from hospitals and hotels throughout Maryland and Washington. Workers tell of sorting through hospital bedding that's wet with blood and excrement, of wrestling laundered sheets into massive pressing machines in stifling heat.
Scalpels come down the line.
All types of bloody material, human waste. It is a modern-day sweatshop. In March of this year, the NLRB, having found merit to the charges, responded with a sweeping settlement agreement in the case. Union officials, however, say the scope of the company's concessions speaks for itself, a view the NLRB does not dispute. Even those remedies, the picketers say, were not enough.