Union voices concern on Army base guards

The bases are:

Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, Ala.

Fort Leavenworth, Leavenworth, Kan.

Fort Leonard Wood, Waynesville, Mo.

Fort Monmouth, Red Bank, N.J.

Picatinny Arsenal, Dover, N.J.

Letterkenny Depot, Chambersburg, Pa.

Fort Lee, Petersburg, Va.

One of the labor union's complaints is that the security tasks are performed under a no-bid contract, which the Army awarded to Alutiiq, a minority-owned firm in Alaska. Alutiiq subcontracted much of the work to Wackenhut.

Wackenhut, a US subsidiary of a company based in London, is the second-largest security business in the United States.

Its customers, for the most part, are major private corporations, but it also does hundreds of millions of dollars in work each year for the federal government.

The Army praised Alutiiq and Wackenhut, saying they are maintaining a high level of security at the bases.

The Army has agreed to pay Alutiiq $180 million over two years for security work at 16 bases. Alutiiq splits the money with Wackenhut.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress allowed no-bid contracts because of ''urgent and compelling" operational requirements.

In the case of the Army base security contracts, the need was the deployment of US troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.

''The SEIU's allegations are just another tactic in a barrage of unwarranted attacks by a union against a Native American company trying to do its part in helping keep our military infrastructure safe and secure," Alutiiq said in a statement issued after the union's concerns were voiced.

''Certainly there are disgruntled employees, but it's a disservice to the 1,300 hard-working men and women who are doing an admirable job every day," Dick Hobbs, the company's executive vice president, said in an interview yesterday.

Wackenhut says that the Army dictates the staffing levels for each shift and that the companies apply a standard formula to determine the number of security officers required. On occasion, guards are asked to work overtime when replacements are being hired and trained.

Ana Granbury, a guard at Redstone Arsenal, said, ''The company hires, issues a weapon, and has an officer working before they have even completed a background check."