RE: Security Guards Overlooked – Minimum Wage Industry Deemed Essential but excluded from the $4 top up for Frontline Workers in Ontario

Dear Honorable Member of Parliament:

I am sending this to you to shed some light on an Industry that is all to often overlooked, not only by our Government officials but also by everyone else. The services rendered by security guards in the protection of lives and properties cannot be over emphasized. Classifying this occupation as an essential service further affirms this position since most of us guards are engaged in frontline responsibilities at hospitals, banks, grocery & liquor stores, clinics and every other site that was deemed essential and has remained open to the public, with restrictions.

I believe that you are of the opinion that a security guard job pays a living wage and that is not even close to the truth; this is a minimum wage Industry that is in a race to the bottom with respect to how low you can offer the security service to get the contract. When the decision to deem us essential was made we should have been considered and included in the decision to receive the wage increases that were given to all the other front-line workers except us. The only way we will see an increase is if the Government stands behind us and demands one on our behalf, otherwise we will be putting our lives at risk for minimum wage.

Often times, at the mention of the word security guard, people's perception goes to the men and women coordinating access in and out of a building or patrolling a property to ward off intruders and while this is true, the job of a security guard has expanded far beyond that. Security guards also help maintain the safety of patients and health care workers in various hospitals, clinics and health care institutions; we are doing positions such as patient watches for high risk patients who need a 24/7 watch (suicide, fall prevention, leaving the hospital or any number of other reasons someone needs to be watched while in care), rapid response team members and now screening people coming into these facilities.

A security guard in the hospital and health facilities or anywhere else ensure the safety of the patients, health care practitioners, employees and offers protection of the infrastructures in those institutions. Like the other health workers, security guards are assigned to keep watch on some patients including coronavirus patients. During the period of watch a guard is expected to stay in close proximity, sometimes up to two (2) meters in order to maintain eye contact with the patient and in some cases physical contact to prevent the patient from carrying out destructive acts becomes inevitable. While other health workers go in and out to attend to the patient, the guard stays with the patient throughout the period under watch (one on one).

The security sector has blown up due to this pandemic but there is no process put in place to hire or train new guards, so we are being pressured to work double shifts or more because of the lack of trained officers or those going off sick with nobody to replace them. Us guards are further putting our safety at risk when we are just trying to do our duty when controlling the number of people allowed in a bank or store at one time. We are being verbally abused, yelled at, spit on and threatened just for asking people to adhere to social distancing boundaries and trying to maintain a limit set by our clients on the amount of people who can be in the bank or store at one time.

We certainly didn’t sign up to be abused, we are just trying to do our job but some people see this restriction as something that is being done to take away their rights, rather than seen as trying to keep them safe and it unfortunately brings out the worst in some people who are at the upper limits of frustrated in a world that has been turned upside down, and so we are the targets of that backlash and frustration.

We therefore request that:

1. Security guards receive the $4 wage top-up approved by the Ontario government for frontline workers.

2. Security guard be considered as frontline workers and be included in all future reviews and pay increases for frontline workers.

The prompt approval of these requests will not only provide us with a sense of pride that our Government and perhaps then the public has deemed us essential in the protection of life and property, but also in acknowledging an Industry that has long been forgotten and overlooked as far as our contribution to keeping society and our communities safe.

Note: security guards earn the base wage rate of $14/hr and this top-up will go a long way to boost our morale and ease our frustrations at being overlooked.

"If you are risking your health to keep this country moving and you're still making minimum wage, you deserve a raise" Justin Trudeau.

Denise Court