DC security officer says company has not protected her during the COVID pandemic
Washington DC May 4 2020
Nearly every job in the District has been upended by the coronavirus pandemic. Some people are working from their homes instead of going into an office; others have taken pay cuts or lost their jobs entirely. But there are plenty of people who are still doing their work in person, even as the world has changed dramatically. This series features the voices of the “still at workers,” telling us what their lives are like right now and what they wish other people knew about being an essential worker during a pandemic.
Miriam Collins has been a security guard in D.C. for 13 years. She turns 55 this month and says she plans to take a week off for herself, just to relax in her home in Northeast. She could definitely use it.
Collins wakes up at 4 a.m. every day and gets to Judiciary Square around 7 a.m. to start her eight-hour shift at the Metropolitan Police Department headquarters, where she’s been a special police officer since 2016. Before that, she was stationed at the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue on 4th Street SW. Her work has been contracted through a third party, Security Assurance Management Inc., since 2018.
“A hectic day is when we have nonstop traffic,” Collins says of her work, which involves scanning people through the metal detector, handling their belongings, and guiding them to the right department. Residents come to the building seeking a host of services like gun registrations and car accident reports. While Collins worries about her health, her biggest concern is pay. She she hopes to receive hazard pay for physically showing up to work during the pandemic, for being “on the front lines.” Help would be nice, she says—from the D.C. government, from Congress, from anywhere.
What is your typical day at work like now?
Every morning, before any of us can go into the building to work, they take our body temperature and ask necessary questions. If your temperature is good, they give you a little rubber band that you put around your badge. That way, they know that you’ve been checked already.
The building has kind of slowed down as far as public entry because of the COVID-19 emergency. They have narrowed it down to appointments only.
We’re pretty hands-on all day. We check visitors into the station and they have to empty their pockets out and put their stuff in the bowl, and we run it into the machine. Now, say there’s something we notice that we need to question—we’ve got to check that ourselves. So we’re touching people’s belongings or the bowl they’ve touched. We may have to wand them if they beep when they come through the metal detector. Some people, we have to pat down. Our job is risky.
What kind of protective equipment are you using, and what are you doing to stay safe?
Well, as for my company, Security Assurance Management Inc., they haven’t provided us with anything since this thing started. As for me and all of us, we’ve been buying our own Lysol wipes and masks. I had to take the wipes from my house and bring them here because I wipe down my area before I start working. I have utilized all my personal wipes—and now you go to the store and you can’t even find them. So now I have to bring bleach and wipe it down.
MPD will share what they have. They have masks and things for their officers, and they give us a mask in the morning. They have boxes of gloves, and if we ask for a pair of gloves, they will do that. But outside of them doing that, we have to furnish our own.
[Security Assurance Management, Collins’ employer, tells DCist, “For weeks, we have worked diligently to distribute personal protective equipment, such as gloves and face masks to all our employees. We are focused on securing PPE for our employees in the midst of a global shortage.”]
For people who can’t see your day-to-day, what do you want them to know about your job and experience?
We’re on the front lines—meaning, at all the posts in these government buildings, we’re the ones that actually sit at the door. We’re the first responders, we’re the ones that check everybody in.
So, for example, if somebody were to come in to do harm to any employee in there, possibly the police chief, they have to get to us first before they could get upstairs. We’re like the human bulletproof vest. So our job is essential. We’re literally on the front line and need to be treated as such, because we’re like human body shields.
Are there any ways people can make your job or life easier?
People could be a little more compassionate and understanding of what we have to do on a daily basis, considering we, too, have families and we, too, want to go home the way we came.
I’ve noticed how the mayor has said that the essential workers would get $14 a day for having to work through this. [D.C. authorized $14 per day hazard pay for D.C. government workers who must physically report for work, but Collins is a contracted employee.] We’re not able to stay home. We have to work through this. Well, the mayor gave that extra money in consideration for her people, but she forgot about us. We are on the front lines of her people, even in her building. We need to be compensated in some way. We should be given that $14 a day for coming out here, risking our health—you know what I mean?
Do you fear for the well-being of your family during this?
I have a 75-year-old mother that I look after and check on. She moved up here from North Carolina to an assisted living place in Southeast a few months ago. She has health issues. Her immune system is really weak for her age. She can barely see, so I have to go cook for her and clean the apartment. I can’t stay away from her.
I’m also a first-time grandmother. I have a newborn grandbaby. He’s a month old, and he comes around. So yes, I fear for them. With him being so young, and her being elderly. So it is challenging every day. I worry every day.
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