Security Guards Strike Kaiser: No Security for the Guards

by Yvonne Martinez, 2008-04-17

The tremor in his voice told it all. On April 4, a striking Kaiser Security Guard stood in front of over 500 union members and supporters in Oakland on the afternoon of a one day Unfair Labor Practice Strike against Bay Area Kaiser Facilities. Unfair labor practice charges were filed by SEIU Local 24/7 to protest the threats, spying and intimidation of Kaiser security guards by Inter-Con, a Kaiser subcontractor.

“I’m so glad you are here. When I walked off the job this morning, I didn’t know who was with us. I really didn’t know who else was going to go. I walked off and at first I walked alone because we are all so spread out in buildings everywhere from here to Hayward. I saw one guy, and then I saw another guy. Then I saw more guys. Then were whole bunch of us. Then I knew. That’s when I knew we weren’t alone. We did it. And now you are all here. I can’t tell you what this means.”

The Kaiser Security Guard strikers picked April 4th as the day of their strike to both honor and draw inspiration from Civil Rights Leader and Labor Activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Forty years before, on April 4, 1968 Dr. King was killed by a sniper at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. The night before he was killed, Dr. King addressed striking Memphis sanitation workers. Sanitation workers organized a union and struck for recognition when one of their members was crushed to death in a garbage truck. Their struggle for respect and recognition became a seminal point in the Civil Rights Struggle.

The day was commemorated by a rally for the strikers. Many of the speakers included local clergy, politicians, labor officials and others who pledged solidarity and support for the striking Kaiser security guards. The majority of the strikers are African American, Latino and newly arrived immigrant workers who work for Inter-Con, a private contractor hired by Kaiser to guard Bay Area Kaiser facilities.

In testimony that was as true now as it was forty years ago, an immigrant worker of African descent spoke of the striker’s demands. The right to respect on the job. The right the to have same benefits and protections that all Kaiser workers have.

“I can guard Kaiser, but I can’t get sick, another Kaiser Security Guard striker said. He testified about Kaiser’s refusal to give workers paid time off for sick leave.

They told me no when I wanted time off because I was sick. They said I had to get a Drs. note. But I can’t get a Drs. note because I can’t afford to go to the Dr. “

Doesn’t that seem wrong? Kaiser, one of the biggest health care providers hides behind a cut throat sub-contractor to pay its workers so little that the workers who protect its property and its staff can’t afford to be sick here.

Corporate employers use sub-contactors to provide workers at substandard pay and benefits to both buffer themselves from sub-contractor labor abuses and against demands for unionization. In so doing, Kaiser is using the same pea in the shell game that other major corporations use. Kaiser’s use of sub-contractors like Inter-Con creates the appearance impartiality and non-interference, but the result is the same.

In a campaign similar to the successful third party target campaigns like the recent Immokalee tomato workers campaign against Taco Bell in the a penny a pound national consumer boycott, Kaiser security guards are in a national campaign to target its parent company, Kaiser. Like Taco Bell, Kaiser has tried to insulate itself from striker demands by trying to characterize the labor dispute as one limited to a dispute between Inter-Con and its mostly minority and immigrant workforce.

Until pressured by national consumer campaigns along with efforts by national advocacy organizations to publicly condemn Taco Bell, Taco Bell was free to hide behind the subcontractors. In this case the target is the venerable Kaiser Health System, an employer that already has a highly unionized workforce.

Kaiser is using tactics similar to those used by some of the most egregious corporate employers like Wal-Mart, but with a twist. Wal-Mart keeps prices low by under paying workers, fighting unionization and dominating manufacturer costs. Wal-Mart is known as much for its labor abuses as it is for its price fixing strategies with subcontractors to cut costs.

In a reverse Wal-Mart, Kaiser benefits from price fixing by sub-contractors.

So instead taking a leading corporate role in providing living wages and health care to its security guards, Kaiser is allowing itself to be dictated to by a third party contractor and in so doing has abdicated its corporate responsibility.

In a statement of unity that showed the strength and solidarity of newly organized immigrant workers, a representative of the Janitor’s local spoke. She pledged that her local would strike if the Security guards went on strike again.

As part of a National Campaign to organize Security Guards using corporate campaign strategies SEIU has organized security guards in Minnesota, Los Angeles, and other cities.