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It all started with a piece of paper
Working a shift at Temple, security guard Cecilia Lynch happened upon a flyer calling for fair labor practices. The flyer, part of a campaign for security workers’ rights on Temple and Penn campuses coordinated by Philadelphia Jobs With Justice (a coalition of labor organizations and local community leaders) caught Lynch’s eye. Inspired by the successes of the Temple campaign, she decided to take action. When Allied Barton later dispatched her to patrol the grounds of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Lynch brought along the flyer—and with it, she brought Jobs With Justice’s campaign for workers’ rights.
Buying Favor, Hurting Workers: Allied Barton in Philadelphia
Like Temple and Penn, the art museum subcontracts its guards from the private security firm Allied Barton. The King of Prussia-based corporation is the largest subcontractor of private security guard services in the United States, and holds a near-monopoly on security contracts in the city of Philadelphia. Through the private donations of its board members, Allied Barton’s parent company, MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc, has also bought significant political influence at major nonprofits and universities, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Temple University, and the University of Pennsylvania. All three institutions are riddled with constant reminders of the firm’s economic and political involvement in their workings. Major structures at both Penn and the Art Museum bear the name of the Ron Perelman, the former CEO and owner of MacAndrews & Forbes. Temple offers a professorship named after Perelman; additionally, its student life building, the Howard Gittis Student Center, is named after Perelman’s chief attorney and right hand man during his tenure at MacAndrews & Forbes. AlliedBarton donated $25,000 to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The money that funds AlliedBarton’s seeming philanthropy is drawn from a long history of profits swollen by unfair labor practices. From denying its workers paid sick days and affordable healthcare to skipping necessary trainings, Allied Barton cuts every corner it can—even illegally paying art museum guards wages that hover far below the minimum wages mandated by the City of Philadelphia. When the guards first began to rally together with other labor activists under the banner of just working conditions, Allied Barton panicked and broke labor law, first suspending five guards active in the campaign at the University of Pennsylvania and then later moving them from their assigned posts--a disciplinary measure intended to discourage further organizing.
United and Fighting Back: Security Guards’ Hard-Won Victories
Despite Allied Barton’s union-busting measures, guards at Penn and Temple continued organizing, forming an Allied Barton guard-specific union, the Philadelphia Security Officers Union (PSOU). The union would soon assume the role of David opposite the AlliedBarton Goliath. In coordination with Jobs With Justice, security guards began to win significant victories in their fight for respect and fair practices in the workplace. Before their campaign, Penn guards had been required to attend shift change meetings in a dank and unsanitary garbage room beneath a Wawa store. Via organizing efforts, however, the guards shamed Penn into constructing a $1 million new campus security center. Over the course of the five-year campaign, the guards also managed to win significant wage increases at Penn and a paid sick-day package at Temple, Penn, Drexel University and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
At the invitation of Lynch and other guards, PSOU began organizing efforts at the art museum in late 2007 and soon amassed a significant amount of support among security officers assigned there. By 2008 the union had already made a significant gain in their battle: paid sick days. Despite Allied Barton’s systematic harassment and intimidation of employees suspected of being labor organizers, guards rallied enthusiastically behind the union. By September 2009, a strong majority of security officers at the museum had signed cards authorizing PSOU as a representative in bargaining with both museum management and AlliedBarton itself. On October 10, 2009, the Philadelphia Security Officers Union, with the help of dozens of volunteers from the community, local churches, students from the universities and trade unions did the impossible, they won an election to be represented by the union that they founded.
Change on the Horizon
Despite the courage and hard work of these security guards, AlliedBarton and the Philadelphia Museum of Art continue to work in tandem to forestall progress.
Weeks after the election, AlliedBarton filed an objection to the election results. The Philadelphia Museum of Art used its in-house closed circuit camera system to spy on union supporters who were carrying out get-out-the-vote activities. After the election, museum officials handed over the surveillance tapes over to AlliedBarton in hopes of over turning the election.
The hopes of the museum leaders were quickly and definitively dashed by the National Labor Relations Board, when the board overruled their objections. Unfortunately, AlliedBarton’s frivolous, legal, foot-dragging did not stop there.
In January of 2010, in an attempt to grind the march toward improving museum security and working conditions to a halt, AlliedBarton filed the exact same objections again.
The Dangerous Gamble
The Philadelphia Security Officers Union has been fighting to improve the safety of the public, the collections and the workforce for three years. AlliedBarton’s promises for improvements have always fallen through. Only a collective bargaining contract will insure that those who best know the day to day safety issues at the museum, the members of the Philadelphia Security Officers Union, will have a voice and the power to protect the museum.