The Daily Pennsylvanian :: Gabriel Oppenheim | You've got mail

It's Valentine's season. If you're lucky, you've received a letter from a lover, finding out someone cares.

If you're an AlliedBarton guard, you might have received a letter saying no one cares. And that you no longer have health insurance.

Here's a beautiful message one guard (who requested anonymity because Allied forbids media contact) received in early February: "Our records indicate that you have not consistently maintained full-time status; as a result, you have lost eligibility for Health and Welfare Benefits through AlliedBarton. Please be advised that your health benefits will end as of February 29, 2008."

Awww, how sweet. And unexpected. But why, you might ask, did Allied feel the need to write this employee and express its emotion?

Well, the company has a sneaky rule regarding "full-time status" that appears on page 26 of its Security Officer Handbook. "You will be classified as full-time," it says, "if you work at least an average of 35 hours a week as measured over a three-month period. Otherwise, you will be classified as 'part-time.'"

This rule makes sense on the surface, but it obscures Allied's quintessential employee catch-22: The guards do not determine how many hours they work. That is to say, Allied hires guards for full-time duty and then assigns them to specific locations for specific periods.

If the company assigns 35 hours in the week, that's how many the guard will work.

But if it suddenly assigns less than that, the guard will have no choice but to work fewer hours than needed for benefits - even though he was hired to be full-time in the first place.

And lest you think Allied can't simply cut benefits, the handbook says "The Company reserves the right to change, modify or eliminate compensation and benefit programs without notice." Thus, a guard with more than a decade of work (as the subject of our story has) can open the mail today and find he can no longer afford his medications.

Of course, Allied has a stated procedure for guards to procure more hours, as its breakup letter states: "Talk to your Account Manager about your schedule." And spokesman Alan Stein told me in an e-mail that Allied does "not engage in efforts to compel officers to lose their benefits once they are enrolled. We have sufficient work available for employees looking for additional hours, and our managers make every effort to schedule employees accordingly."

But this jilted guard had already spoken to the manager and didn't receive any help. Not that the guard expected any.

Allied has shown time and again that it cares less for its employees than it does for its reputation. And Penn hasn't helped. When Allied suspended and transferred five guards leading the unionization effort two years ago, Penn didn't call for their return until the press got involved. When Allied conducted roll call in a garbage dump, Penn didn't call for a new location until the DP did.

And when Allied refused to pay sick leave for its guards last year, Penn didn't pick up the slack until students protested.

Not that Penn should shoulder another corporation's workers, especially in this age of costly benefits. But if the University would just stand up for guards' rights - instead of being downright indifferent to their working conditions and unionization efforts - it wouldn't have to carry Allied's load.

Penn Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli undertook a comprehensive study of guard treatment two years ago and found the company's behavior perfectly acceptable. I'd suggest he revisit the issue now and look at how Allied goes about assigning hours. Who gets what and why? Do managers show preference to certain guards?

Penn simply forwarded my questions to Allied, when its answers could have saved the medical care of a bulwark against crime - and made Valentine's Day just a little bit sweeter.

As for the subject of our story, the guard could work 24 hours a day and it wouldn't change a thing. According to company policy, the guard's benefits can't be restored until July 1, at the earliest.

Gabriel Oppenheim is a College junior from Scarsdale, N.Y. and a former columnist for The Daily Pennsylvanian.

Comments (3)

What good, solid journalism! I love to see stuff like this in the DP. Great reporting, important story to be told -- I'm glad someone's holding Penn accountable.

AlliedBarton is disappointed by the presentation of facts in this story and more so by the fact that nearly all the information we provided was disregarded. Unequivocally, AlliedBarton has not, and will never, make any attempt to limit our employees�? hours in an effort to cause them to lose their eligibility for benefits. We are proud to offer benefits to our full-time employees. The requirement that employees maintain a full-time schedule for benefit eligibility is clearly communicated to our employees on a reiterative basis. Following is the information we provided verbatim in an email to the Daily Pennsylvanian in response to a request that we comment for this story. We trust that the statement below will provide Daily Pennsylvanian readers with a more balanced view of the situation and an appreciation that AlliedBarton offers employees benefits typically not provided by our competitors. Alan L. Stein Vice President AlliedBarton Security Services AlliedBarton�?s initial email response to the Daily Pennsylvanian on February 19, 2008: Unlike most of our competitors, AlliedBarton makes medical benefits available to our full-time employees. This is consistent with our view that security officers with benefits tend to be more engaged in their work and remain on the job longer, increasing the quality of our service and decreasing turnover. We do not engage in efforts to compel officers to lose their benefits once they are enrolled. Like many companies, our medical plan is subject to contractual arrangements with our medical insurance provider, which designates that medical benefits are only available to employees who average 35 hours or more per week, measured over four-month periods. Employees who may lose their benefits are given the opportunity to re-enroll when their hours return to a full-time level. All medical plan participants are informed of this requirement when they enroll, and again during our annual re-enrollment period. Our officers are responsible for tracking their hours so that they can ensure they remain eligible. We have sufficient work available for employees looking for additional hours, and our managers make every effort to schedule employees accordingly. If any employee feels that their needs are not being met, they are aware that they can utilize our Conflict Resolution Process. This mechanism responds to challenges the employee feels are not being addressed by their supervisor. The availability of this process is communicated to all security officers and human resource directors throughout our company.

Mr. Stein: The author of this article included all of the relevant information from your statement. The article exhibits an obvious bias, but it's not an unreasonable one. Information you provided about your "Conflict Resolution Process" might have shed some further light on the situation. But the information you provided was, in fact, superficial at best. The thrust of the article was simple. AlliedBarton security officers find that, despite their efforts, they are not assigned enough hours to maintain full-time employment status. They therefore become ineligible for health benefits. The existence of a "Conflict Resolution Process" only raises questions. It does not provide answers on its own. How does the Process operate? What protection from retaliation is available to workers who invoke the Process? How long does it take? If an employee chooses to invoke the Process in response to losing his benefits, can he preserve his coverage for the duration of the Proceeding? In the absence of information to the contrary, I cannot conclude that this process is more than a way for your company to cover its own ass, so to speak. Put your money where your mouth is, and explain what options are really available to your employees. I'll bet you spend fewer than 35 hours a week actually doing your job, but I'll bet your benefits are pretty sweet.

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