Privatization Leads to Fraud, Mismanagement, and Employee Abuse at Wackenhut

The three words that best describe the private security business these days are “racism”, “corruption”, and “profits”. Wackenhut, the largest private security provider to the Federal govt and the military outside of Iraq, would appear to be awash in all three.

Wackenhut, which has ties to the GOP and the Bush Administration that go almost as deep as Halliburton’s, is currently under investigation:

• in Alaska by the GAO for “inadequate training and incomplete background checks that led to employment of officers with criminal records”, “poor” record-keeping that included falsified training records, and a near-total lack of any kind of monitoring or oversight on the program, as well as for illegally obtaining security contracts that were supposed to go to minority businesses;
• in Miami (scroll to bottom) by Dade County for fraud – overbilling, billing for services not provided, falsifying records of guards’ hours, and violations of labor laws for working guards in some cases 20 hrs/day, 7 days/week;
• by the Homeland Security Committee for “problems at Wackenhut-guarded facilities nationwide that lead to high employee turnover, low morale and ineffective security” at US nuclear sites;
• by the House Govt Reform Committee “to examine charges of racism, discrimination and poor performance;
• at a Tennessee Army ammunition plant where inspectors found holes in the perimeter fences, and where “two teenage runaways were found wandering around the 6,000-acre property after getting dangerously close to explosives” after the number of guards had been cut “in response to higher gas prices”;
• by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for security violations “at Wackenhut-guarded Three Mile Island, Seabrook Station, St. Lucie, and Turkey Point nuclear power plants”;
• and by the Dept of Energy for “shorting the protective force on combat training; excessive overtime; caught cheating during one security drill and involved in a near-friendly fire incident in another” at its Y-12 (Oak Ridge) nuclear weapons plant.

And that’s only a partial list of domestic investigations.

Labor and Business Join for Immigration Reform

There is almost no coverage of unions or labor issues in the nation’s mainstream press. As Studs Terkel pointed out 15 or 20 years ago – and before that, for all I know – every newspaper has a Business Section, along with a Lifestyle Section (now that’s critical news), an Entertainment Section, an Automotive Section. Not one – not one – has a Labor Section. Nor have they ever had one, not even in the 50’s when 35% of the US workforce belonged to a union. When (if) they cover labor news at all, they usually put it in the Business Section where you can pretty much count on a certain, well, slant to the reporting. (There. I’ve said it.)

One day a year, at least, we used to be treated to saccherine paeans to the Old Labor Movement, although they were almost always quickly undercut by “historical reminders” of how corrupt the Teamsters were. Nowadays we don’t even get that. We get instead stories about the modern (mainly non-unionized) workforce “adapting” to the “new workplace”. I’ve seen articles on the incredible levels of employee stress, on employee health care, child care, and the “productivity costs” of absenteeism due to sick children or sick parents. In virtually all of these articles there are two glaring omissions: any mention of unions and any mention of employer responsibility for the problems discussed. Few business reporters are willing to bite the bullet and name the obvious culprit: employers who expect too much and pay too little for it.

I wrote about this in the previous post – and no, I’m not going to get back on that horse again here – because it is the biggest unaddressed issue in the working world today, and probably the biggest reason for workers to unionize. Labor unions, as I wrote a few days ago, have been looking for ways to make alliances with corporations and conservative groups that promise to cut through some of the built-in animosity that exists between them by joining together to work on issues common to both. Yesterday the Washington Post reported on the second such merger this week. This time the issue is immigration reform, and once again the SEIU is right in the middle of it.

Unionized security guards better able to tackle terror threats

By SAM SKOLNIK
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

A local union branch, trying to place many of the area’s private security guards in its fold, released a study Thursday that it said showed a unionized work force would make the guards better able to respond to crimes, natural disasters or the threat of terror attacks.

Officials with the Service Employees International Union Local 6, which represents about 2,400 office building janitors in Seattle and Bellevue, held a news conference yesterday flanked by several local Democratic politicians and other supporters.

They said a majority of security guards, undertrained and underpaid, were eager to be unionized so they could improve and standardize training procedures, better their working conditions and slow high turnover rates.

Office building and public transit security in Seattle is only as strong as its weakest link, City Councilman Nick Licata said.

“Right now, the private security force is the weakest link,” he said.

Licata, union officials and others stressed that security guards receive no FBI fingerprint checks when hired and no “site-specific” training to make sure they know in detail the structure they are paid to protect.

“Seattle’s commercial building owners, the Sound Transit system and other sensitive public sites use personnel from private security firms to detect, deter and report threats,” wrote the SEIU in its 18-page report. “However, these building owners may be creating a false sense of security, since Seattle security officers often get minimal training.”

The SEIU hopes to represent about 1,500 private security guards regionally.