One Woman’s Protest

By Angie Hargot

Alison Hamilton plans to picket in front of the MPD’s main headquarters for awhile. Photo by Angie Hargot.

Alison Hamilton sits quietly on a bus bench. It’s a payday, but she’s hardly happy. With only two large pieces of poster board to shade her from the harsh midday sun, she alternates holding one above her head while gripping the other for passing drivers to see, along with her final paycheck. A swift breeze, her only comfort from the heat, threatens to rip these items from her grasp.

It is her last day of work after nine months at the headquarters of the Miami Police Department. In the days leading up to her termination, Hamilton knew her pink slip was coming. But it wasn’t right, she said. Hamilton would have her four children help by making her signs of protest. She would get a permit to do so and sit outside of the main MPD station until she got some answers.

Hamilton worked for Security Enforcement Protective Agency, a private security firm that had won the last city bid process to install their employees as the security guards that work in various capacities throughout the city, including in government buildings, parks and as personnel in the city’s Police Department. Florida law says these guards must be licensed, a process that requires passing exams, completing rigorous job and physical training as well as terrorism training, and passing periodic drug tests. Hamilton worked the front desk at the 400 NW Second Ave. station.

But when that bid process came around this year, the city accepted the lowest bid they could — and it was not won by the company Hamilton worked for.

In the days leading up to her dismissal, word passed quickly that she would be out of a job. What she wasn’t apprised of very quickly, however, was that the company coming in had already replaced her.

She says the new company, Kent Security Inc., and the MPD kept her from securing her own job. Worse, she says, her position was filled with two temporary workers who were not licensed to do the job and were not properly trained. For months, she alleges, these security guards had been working without a license.

Hamilton insists she had an outstanding record — even enforcing rules the department’s own police personnel didn’t bother following, such as signing in guests at the front desk.

But with notification of the changeover being done by word of mouth for current employees, Hamilton would have had to have been apprised of the position in order to apply, and get some help from her superiors, in the form of a recommendation, which she was under the impression she was to receive. Her supervisor at the headquarters, Maj. George Cadavid, she said, agreed to recommend her.

But ultimately “The major did not give my name [for recommendation] — now it takes two of them to do my job,” she says, her eyes downcast. “But this is America. They can hire and fire anyone they want.”

Hamilton spoke proudly of her children, her voice cracking with the unmistakable treble of approaching tears. Her four children are 25, 22, 19 and 16 years old. Her oldest son lives in Colorado, her 22-year-old daughter works for the School Board, her 19-year-old daughter attends Miami-Dade College and her youngest son attends Miami Central High School, volunteered with the Police Explorers program and is up for drum major next year.

“Am I not supposed to have a job?” she asked.

She wondered aloud several times, “What was the problem?” She pontificated it could have been a personality clash because she doesn’t smoke cigarettes and never bonded with the employees who did. She wondered if it could have been that she didn’t speak Spanish or Creole. Her English wasn’t broken, she said, clutching a plastic bag full of letters, her permit, check stubs and various other papers related to her job and her protest.

“My boss had no problems with me. I was never written up. I’m not on drugs. I’m not a welfare mother,” she said.

Several letters and calls from the SunPost to various police departments and city administration went unanswered for weeks.

Finally, Martha Carbana, public information officer for the MPD, responded that since Hamilton “works for a private security firm, it’s outside of our hands.” She said she would forward other inquiries through the correct channels. Some of those city personnel, already contacted, had not responded as of press time.

But all the red tape hasn’t stopped Hamilton. She contacted Carbana and received a response from her and another PIO, Det. Delrish Moss, about the issue. But she was out on her bench again the following Monday. And has been again and again, she says, in the last weeks. She calls family members and fellow church members from her bench, and they often come out to sit with her, as do her children after school, to send out the message that Alison Hamilton should still have her job.

Gil Neuman might agree. He is CEO of Kent Security, the firm that won the bid for the city contract and started installing their personnel, he says three weeks ago.

“I would love to hire all good people,” Neuman told the SunPost. “We promised the city to try and hire local people, and we do.”

Neuman says there are certain requirements applicants must pass to even be considered, including polygraph and other tests. Tests that Hamilton, as an already licensed security guard working in the position she was applying for, would have no problem passing.

Neuman said the company also tries to bring in people the customer (in this case, the city of Miami) likes. He also admitted that specific positions are not posted anywhere in the first place. “We run huge ads in employment guides.”

But those with jobs don’t tend to read employment guides, and the notification for current employees is based on “word of mouth,” which would be the responsibility of the current company, Neuman says — since his company is yet to have a presence in the facility. Problem is, the current company hardly wants to lose its staff to another company. But Hamilton alleges that Kent Security had already brought in her replacement.

“They brought in a guy for me to train the Friday before last,” Hamilton said. “But I didn’t train him. That’s not insubordination because he’s not my boss. They said, ‘Your old company should have given you a letter,’ but I was never notified.”

“Somebody else is there,” Neuman said. “It’s a question of ethics, for us to try and take employees away from another company. I wouldn’t want that to happen to me so I wouldn’t do that to someone else. We’re amazed by stories about employees [with a previous company] that worked for months and didn’t get paid. Employees not licensed. Those stories blew us away.”

Neuman wasn’t sure what company those employees allegedly worked for, and admits that from his end, those allegations are a lot of hearsay.

State court documents show that at least one former employee, Angel Perez-Gonzalez, is suing Security Enforcement Protective Agency under the Fair Labor Standards Act, claiming he was not paid overtime wages. The suit, filed May 11 of this year, names Manuel Rodriguez and Justo Rodriguez as “defendant employers.” The suit also seeks restitution for a period of time when the company was paying Perez-Gonzalez $6 per hour, when the federal minimum wage had risen to $6.15 and then to $6.40. County documents show several federal tax liens against the company totaling more than $42,000.

Hamilton’s final paycheck for two weeks’ work was for $1024.

Repeated calls to Security Enforcement Protective Agency and Hamilton’s former boss were never returned.

Neuman says Kent Security, which had entered the second to lowest bid amount of around $11 per hour with medical benefits, was accepted out of the six companies that bid because the lowest bidder didn’t follow the bid procedure, neglecting to produce the proper bond and deposit.

Just last Saturday, Hamilton says, Kent Security held a recruitment day, which Hamilton attended. She was told to come back on Monday and the company would put her on the schedule. But when she returned on Monday, she says she was told “the schedule is full,” and she could not be interviewed. She says she was also told that Cadavid did not recommend her for the position, and that Cadavid and the Kent representative “were very good friends.”

“I’m a mother with kids,” Hamilton said. “I’m not looking for a hand-out. How is my son going to trust the Police Department after this?”

Even with a growing fear of reprisal for “bumping heads with the brass,” Hamilton says she stayed on her bench because she knows she was wronged, especially when nepotism exists in the department, such as officials who employ their children, and others fail to follow the security procedures she was trained to enforce. She hypothesizes that one of the unlicensed guards working in a security position at the department got the job with Kent because she is connected to a higher-up at a local towing company. Hamilton says when she asked the woman about how she works while unlicensed the reply was that she found out about the position “from a friend of a friend.”

Hamilton says she has filed official complaints with area EEOC and NAACP offices.

“A couple of guys [from the Police Department] came out Saturday and gave me a hard time. They wanted to see my permit and I showed it to them,” Hamilton told the SunPost Wednesday.

“They’re probably going to run me out of town,” she said. “But I’m more afraid for my kids, with some things I’ve witnessed in there. But yeah, I’m afraid.”

Alison Hamilton expects to continue her protest today, Thursday.

Comments? E-mail angie@miamisunpost.com.