April Piette, a security officer at 25 Sigourney Street, a State building, says she wants “them to do what they’re supposed to do by contract– pay our pensions.”
Employed by SOS Security for two years, Piette says the company has been “intimidating, bullying, and threatening” while refusing to provide answers as to why they are not making pension contributions as required by State contract.
She was one of the 32BJ SEIU service workers on strike today in front of 450 Capitol Avenue, one of the two locations where the private security officers are assigned. Michael Allen, Assistant Director of Communications for SEIU, said “replacement workers” were being used today while roughly 40 security officers were on strike.
Whistles, sirens, and drumming could be heard blocks away. Chants of “Security!” and “Who hasn’t paid your money?” continued until the crowd gathered to listen to speakers who declared “It’s a shame.”
Beyond the pension dispute, subcontracted security officers say they struggle to afford health care with wages as low as $9.56 an hour.
Piette, though frustrated with SOS Security, was hopeful that “a lot of State workers” were coming by the picket line to support the cause.
This dispute has been ongoing since June 2011.
View more images and listen to the sound of security officers on strike.
Luis
I talked to one guy who has been employed with SOS for 12 yrs and for the last 8 yrs has been making $12/hr. That’s $25,000 a year. If average rent for a 2br is $1000/mth, we’re talking about an extra $13k for food, insurance (if any) and vehicle payments/insurance/maintainence. Mi gente, welcome to the working poor.
lee
plus the security company makes over $30 per hr on each guard maybe more.
Richard
Luis and other allies
Welcome to the battle. We need young new blood as some of us in the fight for what, damn 30 yrs now have know all along as we live it. The pay is crap and the classism is overwhelming. We have no paid holidays unless you work, many have no vacation or personal days, no pensions, sick days that take hours and hours before you get one day, danger every day, and folks that look at us as being lazy, dumb, rent a cops, arms of the state, and all other put downs that the folks of americkkka can hurl at a group of workers. We and the cleaners are some of the first to be cut from the workforce when Mr. CEO needs more money for his life.
But you know even with a top down union I don’t really believe it will be much better. Even with all the liberal reforms coming out of the state that it will be much better. Only by the overthrow of the capitalist system and the setting up of a socialist state will things start looking up for the working poor, queers (i don’t mean the Obama babies who I do do all over the place) women, People of Color, and others who are cast aside by the small minded bourgeois, their handlers and lackies. Reform is cheap and misguided and is used by the state to continue to hold on to their power. I wait with baited breath for this battle to heat up and see which side the liberals and those who distrust authority come down on. Marat he watches from close by, always with his eye on the prize, sniffing out traitors betraying. Long live Marat Long live the revolution.
$12 an hour. My goodness that is considered a okay wage in sections of security. Some folks make $9+. 12 is a supervisor wage in some security companies. Yeah we got a lot of problems.