Security Workers Call For Better Representation

Thursday Feb. 8, 2008
Security officer Daniels is now on duty with radio, logbook, keys and clipboard. Conditions are normal at this time.
After changing into his uniform and attending roll-call, James Daniels, 30, security guard at Fordham University, writes this entry in the logbook at the beginning of his shifts. The book is light blue and the pages inside are filled with handwritten entries of things that have happened during the shift, which is from 10:15 p.m. until 6:15 a.m. The logbook contains notes of students giving the guard a hard time or events where the guard on duty had to call the supervisor. It also records things like breaks and sometimes says, “No meals relief. Work through,” for days in a row.

The logbook is a diary of sorts, recording the goings-on in the dorms around campus. They describe in basic detail the duties of a security guard but they do little justice to the relationship some of the guards, like Daniels, have with the students and the part he plays in their lives. Daniels often plays the role of friend, chatting with students about where they have been lately, joking about how late they come back or trying to remember the Yankee’s starting pitcher in 2004. Although the residents of the dorms think they can sneak past him because he’s friendly, they eventually learn they can’t – often after getting caught.

When a girl tried to sneak in her friends without signing them in, Daniels knew what was happening before it even occurred. The girl came in and went upstairs, but he saw on the security monitor a group of her friends standing just outside the door, waiting. So he went to the main entrance and when the girl came down on the other side of the walkway, where the doors lead to O’Keefe Commons, and started beckoning her friends, Daniels was right there, waving to her.

Seven years of working at Fordham, most of them in O’Hare Hall, have seasoned Daniels to the job. Every night from Sunday to Thursday, he takes a 20 minute bus to work, sometimes bringing a “lunch” of spaghetti or steak with rice and peas to save money. His shift is 8 hours long and he makes $11.10 an hour, up from $9.75 when he started, which amounts to just under a 20 cent raise each a year. The attempted sneak-in may be common in the dorms, but it’s not one of the harder things the guards have to deal with; however, despite the stories he collects on the job and the low pay, Daniels says he likes his work.

The people he deals with at Fordham are admittedly less grating on the mind than those at his last job as supervisor at Bellevue Homeless Shelter. There, Daniels dealt with people turning purple from overdosing and dead bodies with needles still stuck in them.

“I had to get away from that environment,” he said.

Now, he describes his lifestyle as “almost good” and says there are things he would like to do for himself but can’t, like go to a movie or a restaurant once in a while. Instead, he said he lives check to check. He doesn’t have a 401k or pension, something he and the other guards are working on getting right now.

“I need that security blanket,” he said. “We protect campus, but nobody protects us.”

A few years ago, he tried babysitting and other off-the-books jobs to make a little extra money, but he only lasted a month, he said, too tired from his night shift at Fordham. He used to work over-time, but too often checks went missing or he wouldn’t get compensated for the hours he put in. He said that doesn’t happen too often, but enough to think, “Is my check going to be right this week?”

Daniels says he has more problems with his employer than with the students, but he doesn’t let it affect his job. Once, another girl who Daniels is friendly with tried to come in with two guys she had met at the bar, all of them very drunk. She pleaded with Daniels to let them in and when he wouldn’t, she cursed him and they went upstairs anyway, forcing him to call the supervisor. He knew where the girl lived and knew her name, so when the supervisor arrived, he found one guy under the girl’s bed and another hiding in the shower. She may have been upset then, but Daniels was worried about her safety with two drunk strangers in her room. The next day, she apologized to him for her behavior, but he knew it was just the alcohol talking the night before.

“We’re like the new parents now,” he said. “We have to tell them things their parents should’ve told them.”

Daniels is not just there to protect students from themselves, though. Once, a man followed a group of students from the bars to their dorm and when they got there, they pulled Daniels aside to tell him they didn’t know who the guy was. He told them to go upstairs and he would take care of it. When the man tried to follow the girls inside, Daniels stopped him and called the supervisor who took over the situation and later discovered there was a warrant out for the man’s arrest. This doesn’t happen too often, though, and most of the time Daniels’s night is occupied by chatting with students or preventing them from sneaking in or sweet talking their guests into the dorm. Despite being their friend, he can’t be persuaded.

“I have a job to do,” he said.