Minneapolis — In an historic act of non-violent civil disobedience, nine Twin Cities security officers were among those arrested earlier today while calling attention to the need for the city’s private security force to have access to quality affordable health care. The protest marks the first time in the nation’s history that private security officers, who were acting to promote public safety by ensuring good jobs with health care for the more than 800 security officers who protect the Twin Cities’ largest downtown buildings, have taken the extraordinary measure of principled non-compliance with the law.

“This is about protecting working families and protecting people who live, work, and play in our city’s downtown,” says Harrison Bullard, a security officer at the Hennepin County Government Center. “People who come downtown want strong, healthy, and well-trained security officers to provide protection for them.”

The non-violent protest in the lobby of the IDS Center, Minneapolis’ tallest building, followed a community forum at nearby Gethsemane Church to which security officers invited the CEOs of Minneapolis-based US Bancorp and Ameriprise to explain to parents and community leaders their refusal to support health care for downtown security officers and their families.

Contract talks between security officers and security firms ABM, Allied Barton, American, Securitas and Viking have been stalled for two weeks over the companies’ demand that security officers pay up to 50% or more of their income for family health care, which would leave too little for food, housing, transportation, education, and retirement.  

On March 20, 17 faith and community leaders were arrested in an act of non-violent civil disobedience calling on US Bancorp and Ameriprise, with combined revenues of nearly $22 billion, to shoulder their fair share of the Twin Cities’ health care burden. One day earlier, U.S. Representative Keith Ellison and other elected leaders urged the companies to protect the community by supporting health care, and security officers announced that they had overwhelmingly voted to reject their employers’ demand that they forfeit up to half of their income for health care.

On February 25, security officers held a one-day strike—the first-ever of its kind in the area—to send a message to their employers that families need to have access to quality, affordable health care. The security officers, who have been at the bargaining table for nearly four months, have been working without a contract since January 1.