Security officers protest for better wages

Dozens picket outside Adobe’s headquarters

SAN JOSE >> Eric Murphy generally makes about $2,400 per month after taxes as a security guard at Facebook, but his dream right now is not to buy a home or even rent out a one-bedroom apartment in San Jose, which averages about $2,460 monthly.

All he wants is to move out of his East San Jose garage-turned-bedroom, which he splits with a roommate for $825 a month, and into something more homelike.

Murphy was one of dozens of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) security officers who protested Friday outside Adobe headquarters in downtown San Jose. SEIU currently is negotiating a new contract with tech companies and contractors who assign security officers to the giant Silicon Valley campuses.

Murphy says he routinely takes overtime shifts and works up to 80 hours a week to make ends meet. The 27-year-old is contracted through Allied Universal, whose health care premium, he says, was too expensive to enroll in. Instead, he gets health care through a heavily subsidized Covered California program.

Murphy demanded that Facebook, Adobe and other companies pay their service workers enough to be able to afford rent, health care and basic needs in the Bay Area, especially as security officers are possibly put into more precarious positions after the YouTube headquarters shooting in April.

Contracted security officers for Silicon Valley campuses make anywhere from $15 an hour — San Jose’s minimum wage salary starting next year — to $20 an hour at the very highest, according to SEIU spokesman Stephen Boardman.

Facebook is not negotiating directly with SEIU. In a statement, a company spokesperson said, “we are committed to providing a safe, fair, work environment to everyone who helps Facebook bring the world closer together, including vendor employees and contingent workers.”

Adobe and Allied Universal did not respond to a request for comment from this news organization.

“These are poverty-level jobs in Facebook,” Murphy said. “We don’t want poverty jobs here. We need to make sure people understand tech companies here are bringing poverty to our community. At some point, when are we going to address that these companies are responsible for the inequality here?”

But Murphy could be counted as one of the lucky ones.

Elizabeth — a 58-year old security officer who grew up in Mountain View in the 1960s, whose father worked at Fairchild Semiconductor and attended San Jose State University — is homeless while working for a major technology company in downtown San Jose. She asked for her last name to be withheld in fear she would be fired by the company or her subcontractor.

Elizabeth says she sleeps