Until now, that contract didn't include sick days. So guards either worked when they were ill or stayed home - and got docked a day's wages from their $9.15-per-hour paychecks.
It was just cruel.
In the last few years, though, many of the 16,000 security guards in Philly (most of them employees of AlliedBarton, which has a local monopoly on the private-security biz) have begun agitating for paid sick days.
Penn's AlliedBarton guards were recently granted up to three days per year, and Temple guards wanted the same. Their demands have been supported by Temple's Student Labor Action Program, Philadelphia Jobs With Justice and area ministers and community leaders.
Back in November, when I wrote about the guards' plight, Temple administrators told me that the issue was AlliedBarton's, not theirs.
"It is the university's policy to not intervene into the employer-employee relationship at companies that do business on our campuses," said a school spokesman.
Which is a crock. Temple, one of AlliedBarton's biggest Philly clients, has the power to alter the terms of its contract - including whether to specify sick days for the school's guards.
So what changed between then and now?
As Temple spokesman Mark Eyerly told me yesterday, "The students have made a highly impassioned and persuasive argument" for the guards' sick days.
Well, hats off to Temple leaders for finally paying attention. I hope the (albeit tardy) humanity of their decision leads the rest of us to adjust how we regard our low-wage workers.
Let me give you an example of what I mean.
After my column ran, I was contacted by a human-resources executive who was peeved by its criticism. Many companies are backing away from offering sick days, she argued, so what was the big deal?
