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California’s security guards earn low pay and have dangerous jobs. Legislative Democrats are pressuring companies to unionize.
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Unions representing private security guards would gain a new advantage in organizing under California legislation that would compel companies to reach labor contracts if the firms want to provide use-of-force training.
State Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas’ Senate Bill 1203 also seeks to raise pay for security guards, and it would require their companies to offer more rigorous training.
Smallwood-Cuevas, a Democrat from Los Angeles, said guards on average make around $44,000 a year, the state poverty line, despite their companies generating an estimated $34 billion in revenue. She said guards also are being asked to take on increasingly dangerous roles without enough training.
“This bill asks us to stand up with these officers to strengthen and improve these working conditions and to ensure that across California, we are not only improving safety, but we’re also helping to build a safety pathway for workers in this sector,” Smallwood-Cuevas told the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee last week.
The committee voted to advance her bill to the Senate Public Safety Committee, which is scheduled to discuss the measure on Tuesday.
Security companies say the measure would add at least $1 billion to their costs each year and lead to fewer guards protecting the public.
“California has led the nation in training requirements, and we applaud that,” Dean Grafilo, a lobbyist for private security firm Allied Universal, told the committee. “However, this bill goes much further than is necessary or reasonable, and we simply cannot ignore the staggering financial burden this bill will impose on our industry and, by extension, California.”
There are an estimated 330,000 private security personnel in California, making the industry one of the state’s largest workforces, Smallwood-Cuevas said. California businesses and local governments are increasingly hiring guards to protect them from smash-and-grab robberies and other crimes. Security firms will also be called upon at this year’s World Cup games in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, the 2027 Super Bowl in Inglewood, and the 2028 Olympics in California.
The measure, according to the business committee’s analysis, would expand training standards, increase annual training for security guards, and require companies to compensate guards for time spent training.
It would only allow companies to provide “power to arrest” and use-of-force training if agreed to in union contracts. Those agreements would require workers to earn at least 30% above California’s $16.90 minimum wage and to receive overtime pay.
The bill also would require state regulators to review and set minimum wages for security guards by 2028. Security industry officials say even a $1-an-hour raise for security workers would add $750 million to their costs each year.
“SB 1203 will eliminate jobs, making companies that seek to automate security functions more competitive, thereby displacing the very people the bill intends to help,” David Chandler, president of the California Association of Licensed Security Agencies, Guards & Associates, wrote in a letter to lawmakers.
Labor is a powerful Capitol force
The bill is the latest effort by labor unions to use the Legislature to pressure companies to allow unionization. The most notable recent effort was a multi-year legislative push that successfully persuaded ride-share companies to support legislation allowing their drivers to unionize.
About 20% of private security guards are unionized, according to the industry, slightly higher than the rest of the state’s workforce, in which about 15% of workers are unionized.
Unions have tremendous clout in the Legislature, largely due to the money they spend on the political campaigns of Democratic lawmakers. Unions also deploy their networks of organizers to advocate for their chosen candidates.
Service Employees International Union, the bill’s sponsor, is arguably the most influential labor organization in the state. The union and its affiliates have donated at least $21.4 million to lawmakers’ campaigns since 2015, according to the CalMatters Digital Democracy database.
Learn more about the legislators mentioned in this story.
Meanwhile, 33 of the 120 members of the Legislature are current or former union members, according to a tally by the California Labor Federation.
Some, like Smallwood-Cuevas, used to work for the unions that would benefit from their legislation.
Before entering politics, Smallwood-Cuevas worked as an organizer for a local SEIU affiliate that unionized security officers. Her campaigns have received at least $119,100 from SEIU and its affiliates since 2021, according to Digital Democracy.
Committee backs union bill
The union’s political clout, as well as lawmakers’ sympathies for underpaid workers doing a dangerous job, was on display last week at the business and professions committee. No committee members voted against the bill.
Sen. Bob Archuleta, a Democrat representing Norwalk, asked Smallwood-Cuevas if he could be added to the bill as a symbolic co-author.
“We use the term ‘first responders,’” he told the committee. “Sometimes it is these individuals and individuals like them that are first responders.”
Archuleta, a former reserve officer at the Montebello Police Department, said he used to arrive at crime scenes and “sure enough, there was a security officer there,” telling police, “I got your back.”
Archuleta’s campaign has received at least $79,600 from SEIU and its affiliates, according to Digital Democracy.
One Democrat on the business committee expressed concerns.
Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Democrat representing the Van Nuys area, said she didn’t have a problem with the bill’s intent to raise wages for guards. After all, she said she worked for five years as a security guard.
But she said she felt the bill’s training requirements were duplicative or would override a law that the Legislature had passed last year on security personnel standards and training.
She said she also had concerns that the bill’s requirements could prevent companies from hiring qualified training consultants because of restrictions on who’s authorized to do that work.
“Right now, there are certain retired police officers who are turned to by security companies to provide that training,” she said. “And they’re no longer going to be given that option.”
Despite her concerns, she did not vote on the bill, instead casting a formal “no” vote.
As CalMatters has reported, legislators regularly dodge tough votes instead of voting “no” to avoid angering influential lobbying organizations.
Menjivar’s campaign has received at least $16,900 from SEIU, according to Secretary of State filings.
“There were provisions within SB 1203 that she liked, and a hard ‘no’ vote would send the signal that there is nothing the author or sponsors can do to move her to an ‘aye’ vote down the line,” Menjivar’s spokesperson, Teodora Reyes, said in an email.
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