OAKLAND– In a dramatic display of the growing gap between America’s excessively rich corporations and the poor service workers who support the economy, private security officers and community supporters rallied and marched today to transform low-wage service jobs into good jobs with family health care and decent wages.
Rev. Jesse Jackson said, “Justice must be won for security officers and their families. It is a travesty that Bay Area security officers who protect property and lives, must live in poverty. Just as Martin Luther King supported the civil rights of working people, we must support security officers, and take action to ensure that they gain the wages and health benefits that they deserve.”
The spirited march wove through downtown Oakland outside high-rise commercial office buildings owned by corporate real estate giants. If security officers who protect these buildings receive just a $1 increase in hourly wages, paid leave and family health care, almost $30 million dollars could be infused into some of the Bay Area’s most economically depressed neighborhoods, where most security officers live.
“I work more than full-time protecting the these shimmering high rise buildings, but when I go home I have to choose between buying food or paying rent,” said Bobby Randall, a private security officer and member of SEIU Local 24/7. “Everyone who works hard and plays by the rules should make a decent living and have access to affordable health care. That’s what we’re standing up for today.”
The event launched the SEIU Local 24/7 Stand for Security contract campaign in which 5,000 Bay Area security officers will negotiate an area-wide master agreement with leading security companies including Securitas, Allied-Barton, Guardsmark, ABM, Universal Protective Service, and Ligouri & Associates. The current contract is set to expire June 30, 2007.
The Bay Area security officers are leading the way up and out of poverty for more than an estimated 50,000 security workers nationwide in that their contract standards are expected to have a positive impact on the lives of security officers working for many of these same security firms in other markets. SEIU represents security officers in Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York City in addition to those in the San Francisco Bay Area and is organizing in Sacramento, Boston and Washington, D.C.