Jobs With Justice

Jobs with Justice engages workers and allies in campaigns to win justice in workplaces and in communities where working families live. JwJ was founded in 1987 with the vision of lifting up workers’ rights struggles as part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. We believe in long-term multi-issue coalition building, grassroots base-building and organizing and strategic militant action as the foundation for building a grassroots movement, and we believe that by engaging a broad community of allies, we can win bigger victories. We reach working people through the organizations that represent them—unions, congregations, community organizations—and directly as JwJ activists.

Philadelphia Security Officers Union

The Philadelphia Security Officers Union (PSOU) is an independent union created by and for security guards in the Philadelphia area. The PSOU is dedicated to reforming the security industry in Philadelphia by bringing together security guards to address work place issues. If you are a security guards working for any security company in the Philadelphia Region, we may be able to assist you with workplace problems. The PSOU is connected to a network of service providers who may be able assist you if your rights have been violated. The PSOU can also help you directly by training you and your co-workers about your rights on the job and how you can improve your lives through grassroots organizing and direct-action campaigns.

 

There are more than 16,000 security guards in Philadelphia. Though being a security guard is one of the most deadly jobs in our city, the vast majority of security guards earn poverty wages, lack health care and dignity on the job.

 

97% of the security guards in our city are African-American. Our campaign, which aims to organize security guards through union and non-union means, is possible the biggest civil rights campaign in our cities recent history.

 

Due to an exclusion in labor law (see section 9 (b) 3 of the National Labor Relations Act), security guards have few places to turn too to secure their rights. On a daily basis, security officers go to work with out proper training and risk their lives for poverty wages and have their rights blatantly violated and even have their wages stolen by unscrupulous employers.

 

We believe that by bringing guards together into collective associations is the only way to empower ourselves as professionals and as community members.

 

Together we are guided by our principles of solidarity, fairness, integrity, justice and action. Security guards in motion, on the job, in our communities and in our houses of worship, acting together on these principles will improve our city and our jobs.

 

Our primary goal is to organize (that doesn’t necessarily mean unionize) the thousands security guards across the city to improve public safety and the lives of the security workforce.

 

From mutual aid societies, to work place associations to labor unions, we believe that workers with a democratic voice will build a stronger Philadelphia.