Your Voice | Keeping guard

Anyone who has visited Penn should be familiar with the women and men walking or biking around campus in bright yellow uniforms. These guards, hired by AlliedBarton, are heralded by tour guides and campus information sessions as one of the key elements that keep students safe. Their tasks include monitoring the area surrounding our campus, walking too-intoxicated partygoers back to their dorms and patrolling the campus itself.

However, this work has never been easy. These people, who were entrusted to protect, were treated so poorly by their employers that by late 2008, they decided to organize to form a union.

Among their demands were higher wages to replace their current pay, which was far from a living wage and could not even allow them to afford basic necessities such as housing, health care and food. They also rallied to ameliorate substandard working conditions, a lack of paid sick days, benefits and training opportunities. By spring 2008, the workers had not formed a union, but gained an increase in their wages and a few paid sick days each year. That’s when the organizing drive stopped.

Four years later, the security guards on our campus still face dire working conditions.

The uniforms they are required to wear do not sufficiently insulate them against the rain and cold that persists through Philadelphia throughout much of the academic year. As a result, workers’ immune systems are compromised and many suffer constant illnesses.

Although the previous campaign won them a few days of paid sick leave, these are not sufficient. Many workers force themselves to go to work when they should stay home for fear of losing wages that are badly needed to pay bills. Additionally, the health care packages offered by AlliedBarton are out of reach for most workers.

They are often faced with the decision to pay for health coverage and take a second job to pay the bills or forgo insurance altogether. Although these workers are already worn down, AlliedBarton has deemed it unnecessary to schedule more than two workers for the late night shift from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., leaving only one biking guard available to field calls should either person need to take a break.

To me — and many of the guards — these issues combined with the daily grind not mentioned mean one thing: a lack of respect. These guards are part of our Penn community, people we see every day, whether or not we interact with them. They dedicate their time to ensuring our safety, yet they are forced to endanger their health to do so, while not even receiving adequate compensation.

Though they are employed by AlliedBarton and by not the University, Penn has a responsibility to ensure that those working on campus have sustainable jobs that can enable them to provide for their families without putting them at risk.

Penn boasts its commitment to the Penn Compact, including, “improving local education, healthcare and economic opportunity.”

The University also has a proud legacy of serving as a major employer, a leader in health services and education.

It does not seem that Penn is living up to this commitment through its practices and it is our job as members of this community to hold them accountable. The Penn AlliedBarton Roving Security Guards are holding an election on Wednesday, April 11 to form a union with the Philadelphia Security Guards Union — an independent union born of the efforts to organize a union at the Philadelphia Museum of Art — lead by Jobs with Justice and students from Penn and Temple University.

Support the AlliedBarton Security Guards’ effort to unionize by coming to the rally on Monday at 11:45 a.m. in front of the button and by signing the online petition urging Penn to support their efforts.

Rosie Brown is a College senior. Her email address is scjerb12@gmail.com.

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