Valarie Long, SEIU Director of Property Services, issued the following statement today in response to a RICO lawsuit filed against SEIU by Wackenhut Corp.:

"In the last month alone, Wackenhut security lapses were confirmed at one nuclear power plant, and Wackenhut guards were caught sleeping on the job at another nuclear power plant.  Instead of addressing the problems that led to the lapses, Wackenhut has chosen to fight its employees' efforts to improve security.

"As long as Wackenhut continues to oversee lax security at nuclear power plants and other sensitive sites, and undermine efforts by SEIU and others to raise the standards of private security in America, SEIU will continue to tell the truth about Wackenhut's record. 

"Among the claims that Wackenhut makes is that they cannot deal with 'mixed unions,' that is, unions representing workers in several sectors. But this is simply an excuse by Wackenhut to hide behind an outdated footnote in U.S. labor law.  The fact is that their London-based, multi-national parent company, G4S, negotiates with mixed union security workers' unions in South Africa, Israel, the United Kingdom and other countries around the world. The U.S. is the only country where this global corporation makes this claim.

"There is nothing that legally prevents them from negotiating with SEIU, a union which already represents more security officers and workers than any other union in America. There's no reason that G4S's U.S. subsidiary, Wackenhut, cannot institute the same practices in the U.S. that G4S abides by with their workforces in these other countries."

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