Inter-Con Seeks to Stop Mainly Minority Workers From Protecting Their Civil Rights, Workers Plan to Walk Off Job May 6-8

OAKLAND, Calif. - Inter-Con Security filed for charges with the National Labor Relations Board late Thursday and is asking the NLRB to seek a court injunction against a 3-day unfair labor practice strike by more than 400 officers who protect Kaiser facilities. The predominantly minority workforce is scheduled to walk off the job starting May 6 to protest how Inter-Con has retaliated against, threatened, intimidated and spied on workers who are trying to form a union.

"Obviously Inter-Con is scared or they wouldn't try this. We all know they've broken the law and we're just taking action to protect our civil rights,"said Allen Newland, Sacramento.
 
Inter-Con claims that this is an illegal strike by officers over union recognition. Officers maintain that they are striking over Inter-Con's repeated violations of their civil rights, a claim backed by numerous unfair labor practice charges filed with the NLRB recently.

"Inter-Con's charges are completely without merit. It's clear that Inter-Con has repeatedly committed unfair labor practices in violation of the law. That's the whole basis of this strike-workers' civil rights have been violated.  This is just part of Inter-Con's campaign of intimidation against the workers,"said Orrin Baird, Associate General Counsel for SEIU.

On April 25, workers and SEIU filed several more unfair labor practice charges, and sent a 10-day notice to strike in response to Inter-Con's law breaking. Just yesterday, several Inter-Con supervisors further violated workers' rights by requiring them to remove union stickers.

Leaders and workers from a majority of the Kaiser Coalition of Unions have also announced their support for the workers. Unions representing the vast majority of Kaiser employees have submitted letters to Kaiser CEO George Halvorson asking for a quick resolution for the security officers, and many Kaiser employees in California and nationally are running worksite actions to support Inter-Con officers.

"It's unacceptable that Inter-Con officers are being harassed and retaliated against simply for seeking to join a union like all other workers inside Kaiser,"said Dennis Demaio, Executive Director of SEIU Local 105, which represents workers at Kaiser facilities in Colorado.
   
Inter-Con officers work for poverty wages, many making as little as $9/hour while at Kaiser. Inter-Con officers do not have paid sick days and many cannot afford the family healthcare coverage. By comparison, facility janitors have free family healthcare, make a minimum of $11.50/hour and accrue paid sick leave.

"We wanted a union for better pay and benefits. But instead we've got Inter-Con violating our civil rights. We go to work every day to protect these patients and employees, but we have no protections ourselves,"said Warren Chauvin, Fremont.

The strike against Inter-Con would affect more than 20 Kaiser facilities including locations in the Bay Area, Sacramento and Los Angeles. Officers are also planning to hold simultaneous national solidarity activities at Kaiser facilities in Colorado, DC, Ohio and Virginia.

Since November 2005, 1,500 Inter-Con security officers in California have been working to improve security and working conditions by forming a union with SEIU. They are the only workers at Kaiser-either direct employees or subcontracted-who do not have a union.

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