Charlotte NC April 17 2020
Complaints from contract security officers and their unions are beginning to stack up across the county causing state regulatory agencies and the U.S. Department of Labor to initiate investigations.
Security officers are considered "essential" personnel and have been working around the clock protecting closed businesses from being burglarized, keeping the peace at grocery stores and providing high viability security at numerous commercial and residential locations.
But many security officers have been complaining for weeks that they do not have the proper Personal Protective Equipment to work in some of the environments where they're face to face with hundreds of people a day. More than three dozen security officers have reported that their employers have told them that they are not required to provide PPE and if they want to wear it, they will have to buy it themselves.
Other complaints that have come to light include being forced to work overtime, in some cases, 60-80 hours and not being paid overtime pay and being told that they would receive a "bump" in pay for COVID-19 and then never receiving it.
Teamsters Local 727 in Chicago said that 40 Local 727 security officers have been unlawfully left behind and furloughed another 50 have lost a full day's pay each week when the city of Chicago decided to McCormick Place convention center into a hospital, seemingly overnight.
These Teamsters frontline, essential worker have dedicated their careers to securing the nation's largest convention center and protecting its patrons-visitors from all over the world. Adding insult to injury, according to recent news reports, the City of Chicago contracted out to a company that is hiring 300 people off the street to act as security for the newly established hospital, unlawfully taking work from tenured union members.
A security officer in Tennessee who works the overnight shift said that the facility never told him that several of their residents were COVID-10 positive and when he found out, he had to be self-quarantined for fourteen days.
During the past twenty days, sixty-one security officers working at medical facilities, retail stores and public transportation terminals, have reported that people have intentionally coughed, sneezed and spit on them, saying that they were infected with the COVID-19 virus and two New York City homeless shelter security officers who were not properly equipped with safety equipment tested positive for the virus.
At least five lawsuits against security companies by their employees have now been filed for non-payment and lack of PPE issues.
At lease one lawsuit has also been filed against a security company for not having Worker's Compensation and refusing to pay the medical costs of a security officer who became infected with the COVID-19 virus.
Both state and federal laws require employers to maintain a safe work environment and to provide the necessary safety equipment for each employee.
NOTE: There have been 57 confirmed security officer deaths and more than 1100 confirmed cases of security officers testing positive with COVID-19 including 800 TSA employees, 23 court security officers and 11 school security officers.
