Los Angeles Security Officers Vote To Strike

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OCTOBER 26, 2007 – For the first-time ever, private security officers that protect commercial office buildings throughout Los Angeles County voted overwhelmingly to go on strike. The union of 4,000 security officers in hundreds of buildings across Los Angeles — from Long Beach to La Crescenta, from Pomona to West Los Angeles — can call a strike at any time.  Security officers in Los Angeles have been organizing for a good contract for more than five years.

“We will not go into another holiday season with little more than a hope and a prayer – we’ll do whatever it takes to win a good contract now,” said Robert Branch, security officer with ABM Security Services. “Security officers are being denied necessities like wages you can raise a family on and the peace of mind that family health care brings. This is our time and we’re going to make this right for all time.”

After more than five years of struggle, security officers won recognition of their union in December 2006 but it wasn’t until July 2007 that contractors started bargaining. Security officers that work for Universal Protection Service, ABM, Securitas, Guard Systems, Allied-Barton – the contractors that service more than 80% of commercial real estate in Los Angles County – are fighting for the first city-wide, master agreement in history.

“The security contractors are dragging their feet and disrespecting security officers. We could bargain this contract in a very short time, but the companies are not seriously working with us to come up with a comprehensive agreement,” said SEIU SOULA Local 2006 President Faith Culbreath. “Security officers and their families should not have to go through another holiday season struggling to get by without health care and decent wages, the things that every working family deserves.”

Double Standards in Corporate Real Estate
Private security officers that patrol and protect high-rise commercial office buildings are critical in maintaining the safety of tenants and the general public. While the multibillion dollar corporate real estate industry enjoys low vacancy rates, rising rental rates and record breaking profits, the private security officers experience low wages, no access to quality, affordable health care, no respect, inadequate training and lack of a professional career ladder.

Right now security officers earn $6/hour less than union janitors and have no access to affordable, quality health care for themselves or their families, no paid sick days, no paid holidays, no bereavement leave, no pension or other benefits that many other building service workers have fought for and won. Nearly 70% of area security officers are African American. If building owners would agree to compensate security officers as they do union janitors, more than $50 million more dollars a year will flow into the impoverished communities of South Los Angeles, where most security officers live.

“Los Angeles’ corporate real estate giants must agree to stop the separate and unequal treatment whereby janitors, parking lot attendants, window washers and building engineers that are mostly Latino and white all earn decent wages with full family health care – and security officers are the only group of service workers that are being left behind,” said Rev. Dr. Lewis E. Logan II, Senior Pastor Bethel A.M.E. Church of Los Angeles. “Security officers are being treated as second-class citizens. This is a civil rights issue, and our community is ready to stand for security.”

Poverty Conditions in Private Security
Low wages and lack of affordable health care, taken together, make security a dead-end job. The result is an unacceptably high turnover rate that prevents security officers from getting the experience and training they need. Industry experts place the turnover rate at up to 300%.

Security officers in Los Angeles earn about $21,000 a year, about half the measure of self-sufficiency standard of $41,388 set by the Economic Policy Institute for a family of four in Los Angeles. A security officer would have to work more than 100 hours each week just to meet the cost of housing, food, transportation, health care, child care, pay taxes and meet other basic necessities.

Most security officers are offered health care plans they simply cannot afford. Left without real choices, those without affordable insurance do what they have to in order to survive – they seek care in emergency rooms or public clinics. Without affordable health care, security officers report that they wait as long as possible to seek care, often creating more serious problems that are more expensive in the long run.

Nearly 60% of area security officers enroll their children in Healthy Families and Medical due to the lack of access to quality, affordable health care through their full-time work.