Union gets boost in security guard drive

Yawu Miller

Over his four years working as a security officer, Rodney Noel has never received a raise. But when a new security firm took over the contract for the building where he worked, he took a pay cut to work for the new firm.

In addition to the low pay that is customary in the security field, his complaints echo those of his co-workers — a lack of respect from management, not getting paid for overtime and missing wages from an extra shift.

“To this day I have still not received the pay they owe me,” he said.

Last week, Noel and other security workers joined Service Employees International Union Local 615 President Rocio Saenz and a group of elected officials and religious leaders as the union ratcheted up its drive to organize the guards last week with a press conference at the Charles Street AME Church in Grove Hall.

Standing next to Pastor Gregory Groover and several security guards and elected officials, Saenz said the men and women who guard office buildings, hospitals, government buildings, malls and schools in Boston and Cambridge are neither properly trained nor fairly compensated for their work.

“Five thousand security officers go to work every day to protect these buildings,” she said. “And let me tell you: they make $10 an hour. You can’t live on $320 a week. You can’t pay the bills.”

Saenz cited a study that concluded that a single parent with a single child would have to earn more than $21 an hour to meet the cost of living in Boston.

“They work for multi-million dollar corporations that are very profitable,” she said.

The organizing drive, which began last summer, is the second high-profile drive for the union, which unionized janitors working in schools and office buildings in recent years. Early support from prominent elected officials included Mayor Thomas Menino, who signed a letter of support for the organizing drive.

Also present at the press conference were Cambridge Mayor Ken Reeves, seven Boston City Council members, state Sen. Jarrett Barrios and state reps. Gloria Fox, Martin Walsh and Tim Toomey.

“You have my support, you have my colleagues’ support,” said Boston City Council President Michael Flaherty. “We will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you.”

The majority of those working in the security field in Boston are African or African American. Increasing their wages, union officials say, would help the low-income communities in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan, where most of the security guards live. Local 615 estimates that a pay increase of $.50 would add more than $17 million a year to the economy of those communities.

Local 615’s latest organizing drive is part of a national effort to bring security workers into the union. With the expansion of security services in the post Sept. 11 climate, the sector employs thousands in Massachusetts. But as three major corporations — Allied, Securitas and Northeast — have taken over most of the largest contracts in the Greater Boston area, salaries of the security guards have in many cases decreased, the guards say.

SEIU’s drive aims to secure for the guards higher wages, health care and guarantees of basic rights like overtime pay. The union members say the firms often offer their workers less than 40 hours a week to deny them health care coverage. Those companies that do offer health care coverage often require the workers to pay more than $100 a week for the benefit, taking almost a third of their pay.

Many of those who spoke at last week’s press conference complained that the security firms are operating without accountability to their workers.

The elected officials and ministers pledged to fight for the workers’ rights.

“Call on us,” Cambridge Mayor Ken Reeves said, addressing the security guards. “Take us with you to meet with the CEOs and the COOs. We can help you.”