Life, liberty and the pursuit of healthcare

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2238809,00.html

Wackenhut guards - hired to protect historic Philadelphia post- 9/11 - describe less-than-deal working conditions and a struggle to unionise

Will Bunch in Philadelphia
Thursday January 10, 2008
Guardian Unlimited

They stand sentry at America's most sacred freedom sites - Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was ratified in 1776, and the Liberty Bell, now housed in a new building nearby.

But to hear some of the more than 40 contract security agents employed by the massive government contractor Wackenhut Services describe their working conditions, it instead evokes another image from that era, the miserable winter that George Washington and his ragtag army spent at Valley Forge some 20 miles west of here.

The private guards - hired after the federal government decided to bulk up security at the Philadelphia historic sites in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks - describe long, sometimes cold days in which they are issued little or no protection from the elements, in which a torn raincoat is patched with duct tape and workers are disciplined for leaning against a wall or post.

"My raincoat ripped on the side, and I was told to duct tape and staple it," said Charlie Wilson, who's worked as an armed guard for Wackenhut at the site for a couple of years and is now leading an effort to unionise the workforce. "I went in the next day to order a new one, but that was two months ago."

The complaints about the day-to-day working conditions come on top of more pressing problems, including an arrangement that makes it impossible for most of the workers to obtain adequate health insurance and a policy that prevents them from taking paid sick days.

Indeed, this new skirmish in Philadelphia - in the shadow of where Washington governed, in America's first capital city and where Thomas Jefferson wrote of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" - is an example of how the liberty and happiness of workers remain an open and highly controversial issue in 21st century.

FULL story at link.