San Francisco Security Guards Go On Strike
San Francisco security guards, the men and women who are supposed to protect workers in high rises from terrorists, disgruntled workers, and general crazies, have gone on strike, seeking better wages and benefits. According to the SEIU, San Francisco security guards make on average $24,000 a year, about $5 less than janitors, have no access to affordable health care and little to no chance for advancement or for an increase in salary. As the SEIU puts it, this makes being a security guard a dead-end job, leading to a 300 percent turnover rate, and preventing the most skilled workers from protecting your workplace.
September 26th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Security guard IS a dead end job!
They sit all day on their asses and want a better pay. They want training ? For what? They sit on their butts, not doing anything. There is no training for that!!!
Security guard is a joke position, just so that high rise workers would FEEL more secure. They don’t add any kind of security. I am sorry, but I don’t see a 50-year old lady stopping a terrorist or even a drunk with a broken bottle.
Go to school. Get a better job, but complaining that you don’t get paid enough to sit on your ass is ridiculous.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:48 am
It’s easy to sit in judgement of others circumstances, as SF Guy does. People outside of the industry largely see what he does; people sitting around appearing to do nothing. In some cases that’s true, but it’s what most of you don’t see that makes Security a stressful position.
In response to SF Guy - has it ever occured to you that proper training for officers should be the primary goal of the companies? Perhaps people WANT to feel secure? Perhaps they WANT the person at the front desk to be trained and ready to respond to all sorts of emergencies? Ever try to find a cop when you’re being harrassed by a homeless person, or being robbed by a gangbanger?
Point is - you pay peanuts - you get monkeys. What the hell do you expect for half what it costs to rent an apartment in San Francisco? How is cleaning a building worth more money?
I can attest to the fact that you CAN get ahead in the industry, and that it’s not a dead end job. Just like everything else, you get out of it what you put into it.