Security breach
Is a private rent-a-cop firm shortchanging the state?

By A.C. Thompson

Dan Higgins, a lean, serious-looking character, is one of 26 private security officers who patrol the state's massive, one-million-square-foot Civic Center office complex. He's paid to protect the people who work at the state Supreme Court and a gazillion agencies, including the Franchise Tax Board, Department of Industrial Relations, Secretary of State, and Department of Justice.

And he's convinced that his employer, Guardsmark, a big national rent-a-cop firm, is putting the safety of his charges at risk by scrimping on staffing – in violation of the company's state contract.

Guardsmark, which has 18,000 employees and annual revenues of $468 million, claims on its Web site that it's grown from a little business committed to "doing the right thing" into "America's leading counterterrorism specialists" with a brain trust of "former law enforcement officers, FBI executives, military specialists, and Secret Service agents."

Higgins has reason to be unhappy with his employer: he's part of a union organizing drive, and he claims he's been stiffed for back pay. A review of the state documents suggests the whistle-blower may be right.

Intruder!

"We have security breaches on a regular basis," Higgins said. "We have people with no I.D. whatsoever who get into the building."

Higgins has been studying the deal between Guardsmark and the state, and he thinks the firm isn't giving the level of coverage – that is, the number of guards on duty at any given time – required by its three-year, $3.1 million contract, which expires this fall.

He said the company has cut back staff to the point where it couldn't possibly be providing the service it promised. "Two posts have been completely deleted in the past six months. They no longer exist," he said.

The Bay Guardian has obtained copies of the state contract, the company's schedule for March, and a document called the "Mission Partnership Statement," and it does indeed look like Guardsmark is failing to fulfill its end of the deal.

The contract calls for the company to provide 1,066 hours of guard time every week. But we've also reviewed the monthly guard schedule, and in March, the total scheduled hours add up to only 860. (That assumes the guards are working 40-hour weeks.)

A key vulnerability, according to Higgins, is something called the Fire Control Center. It's a bank of computers and TV screens tied into a network of surveillance cameras, fire alarms, sprinklers, and emergency phone lines – essentially the cerebellum of the security system. Internal Guardsmark documents indicate the center is supposed to be "staffed with one Supervisor 24 hours a day."

But Higgins said the company is routinely posting unqualified officers to the center. He's been posted there alone, he says – and he's not a supervisor.

Emily Fan, who manages Guardsmark's local office, declined to comment on the allegations, saying, "No one here's qualified to comment for the record." She directed us to the firm's Memphis, Tenn., headquarters, where Guardsmark spokesperson Dottie Clayton would not respond to any of the issues raised by this story.

Deirdre Lehn, an organizer with Service Employees International Union Local 24/7, was happy to speak with us. As far as she's concerned, "it seems very clear that Guardsmark is providing less than the state wants and expects. The question that raises is whether the state knows they're falling short."

Lehn is leading a six-month-old drive to unionize the Guardsmark officers.

Dude, where's my pay?

Frontline Guardsmark workers are also convinced the company has tried to screw them out of thousands of dollars in pay. To understand the beef, you first need to know that California has a mandated minimum wage for companies doing business with the state. The law requires contractors to give their employees "health, dental and vision benefits" or pay them an extra $1.12 to $2.86 an hour in lieu of those benefits.

Though Guardsmark's contract clearly states it must do one or the other, the company apparently stiffed the workers until they found out about the law and started asking questions in January and February.

At the Department of General Services, which oversees procurement for the state, spokesperson Robb Deignan confirmed Guardsmark had underpaid its workers and said his agency began pushing the company to cough up the money in January.

Guardsmark, according to Deignan, has started paying current and former workers the back wages they're owed.

But the state is still investigating the paycheck debacle. "We're looking into it right now," he said. "We are actively working on it."

The state should probably talk to Higgins. He says the legally mandated payments have already stopped; he showed us his most recent check stub to back up that claim. He's so pissed that he's filed suit charging Guardsmark with engaging in "unfair business practices" by failing to pay him all the money he's entitled to.

He's not the first person to say that: San Francisco court records indicate at least two people have successfully sued Guardsmark for unpaid wages during the past two years, recovering a combined $1,950.

Meanwhile, the contract comes up for renewal Nov. 31.

E-mail A.C. Thompson