For security officers in central Ohio, the struggle for a union contract has been a long one. In April 2013, security officers and janitors held a rally for a living wage and affordable health care outside the Motorists Insurance building in downtown Columbus.
“I’m committed to my job, but it’s hard to get by on low wages with no benefits,” said Thurman Elliot, a full-time security officer employed by Allied Universal. “My wife is sick, and because I don’t have affordable health care through my job, we both have to rely on Medicaid.”
Decades ago, downtown office buildings employed security workers in-house, with decent pay, benefits, and pensions. But in recent years these jobs have been outsourced to contract companies who have paid security officers only slightly over the state minimum wage, with few or no company benefits.
he flag is a symbol, and there is no agreement as to what it actually symbolizes. By design, the flag’s thirteen stripes stand for the original 13 states, none of which would ban slavery. The 14th state, Vermont, was the first state to ban slavery, doing it weakly in its 1777 state constitution (not that the principle was enforced: in 1802 the Town of Windsor sued a 
