Security firm drops objection to museum guards' unionizing

The security firm that employs about 130 security officers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art said Tuesday that it had dropped its bid to block the guards' effort to unionize.

AlliedBarton, of Conshohocken, which supplies security services around the country and to many large facilities and institutions in the Philadelphia area, had filed a number of objections to a union election conducted in October.

On Monday, the National Labor Relations Board in Washington upheld earlier findings against AlliedBarton and certified the Philadelphia Security Officers Union as the official bargaining representative for the museum's guards.

"While we are disappointed with this result, we respect the board's decision, and we are prepared to begin the bargaining process with the union," Jim Gorman, AlliedBarton vice president and general manager, said in an e-mail statement Tuesday.

"We have already been in contact with the union to request a meeting to begin this process. We are confident that we can negotiate a collective bargaining agreement that supports the needs of our officers, the museum, and its patrons."

Fabricio Rodriguez, lead coordinator for the union, said that AlliedBarton had essentially "run out of NLRB options" and that the union was seeking to schedule dates to meet with company representatives to discuss a contract.

"Until we have an agreement in hand, we're kind of taking it with a grain of salt," Rodriguez said. "But we have an enormous network of supporters, and City Hall is very aware of the situation."

Rodriguez said the union was working on contract proposals, but he declined to give details. In general, the union wants to bring down the "extremely high turnover rate," he said.

Better training and more attractive benefits and salaries would begin to stabilize the museum workforce, Rodriguez maintained.

The guards are paid $10.03 an hour. In 1992, when the officers were members of a municipal union, they received up to $14 an hour plus benefits, according to union organizers. During the 1990s, the museum began subcontracting security services to private companies; AlliedBarton employs about 80 percent of the museum's guards.

AlliedBarton had sought to invalidate the October election by charging the union with violations of rules governing election conduct. An NLRB hearing officer ruled against the company in January, and the full NLRB upheld that ruling without comment on Monday, according to a spokesman.