Workers Guarding San Francisco’s Wealthiest Companies Vote to Authorize a Strike
The security workers who guard tech companies and other offices across San Francisco took a step toward a walkout Wednesday.
Amid months of negotiations with massive contractors like Allied Universal and Securitas, members of the Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West, the union that represents some security workers, voted to authorize a strike in response to unfair labor practices.
As drums pounded and workers chanted at the Mechanic Monument Plaza in downtown San Francisco on Wednesday, David Huerta, president of SEIU-USWW, called for improved benefits and a $30 minimum wage. This is more than what the private companies are offering in negotiations, he said.
“Who can survive with $22 an hour in San Francisco?” Huerta asked as members of the crowd shouted, “Shame.”
Allied Universal declined to comment on ongoing labor negotiations.
Tejinder Singh, a security officer at Google and bargaining committee member, said that the union and the security giants have their last round of negotiations Wednesday, and that officers are ready to strike if the companies do not agree to their demands.
A union press release states that their roughly 14,000 members asked for raises, employer-paid family health care, retirement benefits and job security, and were offered “a mere 25-cent raise over the next four years, including no raise at all in three of those years.”
Singh said that he did not know how he and his colleagues would survive without a pay increase, given how much prices have skyrocketed across the Bay Area.
“Everything has increased, gas costs, food costs, rent, medical costs … everything,” Singh said.
The union announcement came days after artificial intelligence giant Anthropic shuttered the doors to its San Francisco office and told employees to work from home after its security contractor, Allied Universal, warned of a possible strike.
Speaking directly to companies like Anthropic, Salesforce, Nvidia, OpenAI, Google, Cisco and others, which rely on guards, Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco) reminded the lucrative industry how essential security workers are to keep their employees and operations safe.
“None of this wealth would be possible if it wasn’t for [the guards],” Haney said. “They need to support you like you support them. They need to protect you like you protect them.”
Anthropic and the other tech companies did not respond to KQED’s request for comment in time for publication.
Private contractors like Allied Universal and Securitas also provide guards for hospitals, transit agencies and other offices — including KQED.
“We are prepared, if necessary, to do what labor has the ultimate power to do,” Huerta said.
KQED’s Nastia Voynovskaya contributed to this report.