Gathered around a music stand serving as a podium on 10th and Pike, security staff at Neumos, Barboza, and the Runaway announced at a Wednesday afternoon rally that they have unionized as the Neumos Security Union and have filed to hold an election with the National Labor Relations Board.
The Neumos Security Union is a separate entity from the previously established Neumos Workers United group, which isn’t technically a union but was formed earlier this year to advocate for workers in all departments.
Why organize a distinct union just for security staff? Because this is the United States and our labor laws were written to benefit corporations: In 1947, Congress passed the right-wing Taft-Hartley Act, clamping down on workers’ rights to organize and specifically barring security guards from being in the same union as other workers in their workplace (unless the owners voluntarily recognize the union).
As Washington’s late Republican US Senator Slade Gorton explained it during the Reagan administration, the “guard clause” was “designed to minimize the danger of divided loyalty that arises when plant guards are called upon to enforce the employer’s rules against other employees or to maintain order on the premises during labor strife.”
“We’d rather all move in solidarity together, but this is the way that things have to work,” says Charlie Capps, an organizer with Neumos Workers United.
Capps told the assembled workers, press, and members of the public that while workers have successfully bargained with management and ownership for better conditions and pay for the security team, there’s still work to be done.
The Neumos Security Union represents around 40 staffers at the three venues operated by Fokus Industries, according to organizer Ozi Goldstein. Around 20 workers were in attendance today.
“Safe venues start with safe staffing,” Goldstein told the crowd.
“I’ve worked many shifts where we’ve been understaffed,” says security worker Sarah. “This puts everyone at risk.”
Fokus Industries has not responded to a request for comment.
Neumos workers told The Stranger earlier this year that management won’t let the security team properly staff shows, leading to the hospitalization of multiple employees. After a violent incident at an understaffed Neumos sent the security manager to the hospital, the workers started getting organized.
Goldstein shouted out multiple local unions that have recently organized, including United Creatures of the Sea at the Walrus and the Carpenter (and other establishments), and workers at both the Crocodile and the National Nordic Museum.
Goldstein cited the Seattle Art Museum Visitors Services Officers Union as “a huge inspiration to us.” The SAM VSO union represents the museum’s security staff, who were forced to independently organize their own union separate from the rest of the staff after the NLRB cited the Taft-Hartley “guard clause” and refused to oversee an election. Those other staffers, Seattle Art Museum Workers United, won their election in June.
Neumos Security Union organizers say they’ll be hosting trivia and shows to raise money for their unionization campaign, saying that if Fokus lawyers up and tries to bust the union (they’re requesting they don’t), then the workers will need lawyers of their own.
