A Win for Security Officers in Oregon
Oregon’s private security industry is becoming more professional and fair thanks to testimony by Executive Board Member and Security Officer Linda Sporer and our Union, new requirements for private security employers went into effect as of January 1, 2024! Many of these changes addressed loose language around wages, training, employment guidelines, and more!
Linda Sporer showed up multiple times to testify before the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training (DPSST) as well as the Oregon Legislature to help committees understand how these changes would impact security officers, increase safety, reduce turnover, and create a more professional and fair security industry.
“I think some [places] don’t really take sexual harassment as an issue in creating a hostile work environment.” Sporer said in an interview, “I took quite a bit of sexual harassment, and most of the time I didn’t engage, but it didn’t stop. Now that I've been working with my Union, I was able to go to DPSST meetings and give testimony to change the rules around training standards. And that’s the point: it’s about making things better for the officers and ensuring they get the training they need.”
Now, for the first time, all private security entities must:
Obtain a license proving they pay their workers and pay their taxes,
Create transparency in the industry by reporting their ownership and work locations
Train all employees to prevent workplace sexual harassment/assault and discrimination as well as understand whistleblowers’ rights
And more!
When DPSST released their first draft of the rules in September of 2023, our Union showed up to challenge and change the rules to better protect workers. Some of these included:
DPSST: Would have allowed employers to run their own anti-harassment/discrimination training without any guidelines for training quality. Without enforced standards, we know that this could have led to poorly-planned or even non-existent training that would not improve workplace safety.
SEIU49: We pushed that all employers are required to use the same standardized trainings to prevent workplace harassment/assault and discrimination, promote cultural competency, and explain whistleblower rights.
DPSST: Left out some essential labor and employment laws from the “Statement of Employee Rights and Remedies” that employers now have to give private security officers they hire. This would have left out the NLRA, FMLA, OFLA, and the new Paid Leave Oregon law. They also did not provide guidance on how to communicate the “Statement of Employee Rights and Remedies” — which would have meant a lot of bad or non-existent communications around what rights workers have.
SEIU: We pushed back and demanded all essential labor and employment laws added to the “Statement of Employee Rights and Remedies.”
DPSST: Wouldn’t have taken into consideration any violations of labor and employment laws (including the ones named above, plus wage and hour, civil rights, safety and health) when determining whether employers demonstrated sufficient “character, competence, and reliability” to be licensed as private security entities.
SEIU49: We pushed back, telling DPSST that it needed to consider labor and employment laws when assessing employers’ “character, competence, and reliability.”
None of this would have happened without Linda Sporer’s testimony and the power and hard work of our union, including COPE contributors and members who volunteer to help pro-worker candidates win elections.
CONTRIBUTE TO COPE TODAY
Changes like this are possible because of member contributions to COPE. Our union is committed to bettering the lives of workers and we work hard to campaign for candidates and pass laws that address issues facing working families every day.
Together, we can continue to address key issues in our communities such as good jobs, affordable housing, and paid family leave and more!
