How a group of unsung heroes fought for better working conditions. onesarahjones writes
Photo: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images Luis Andino was out fishing with his buddies in the Bronx when he heard the news. They’d stopped to get bait early that morning 20 years ago, and on the television in the bait shop Andino saw a thing that would change his life. A plane had struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. At first he thought, Maybe a guy’s drunk, maybe he hit the tower by accident. Then, back out on the water, he heard an unusual sound: a fighter jet screaming overhead.
At the time of the attack, he says he was barely making ends meet working double shifts at two jobs as a security guard. “Seven to three, three to eleven,” he says. 9/11 would transform Andino’s industry, leading to a boom in so-called “guard labor.” Go anywhere in New York City now, and security officers are nearly ubiquitous. On the swampy summer day when I met Andino, they roamed the grounds of the memorial, monitoring crowds, directing tourists.
Prior to 9/11, the people performing guard labor often made little. When Juanita Hernandez started working in security in 1997, she made only $5.60 an hour, about $9.50 today adjusted for inflation. On 9/11, she worked security at 55 Water Street and became stuck at work for an entire week. The company tried to accommodate its stranded workers, but conditions were less than ideal. “We had no beds,” she recalls.
Melendez, Andino, and Hernandez all either belong to or work for 32BJ SEIU, and say its organizing efforts transformed conditions within the security industry. They point to partnerships the union forged with local churches and community groups, dispatching security officers to march in the West Indian Day parade with Senator Chuck Schumer and, in 2005, staging a mass action.
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