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LATEST NEWS
Miami Audit Claims Wackenhut Overbilled City Over $6 Million: Miami's Audit and Wackenhut's Response Available Online Read 5/08/2008 coverage by NBC6 on the audit here. Click here for the official city audit available on NBC6. Read the updated 5/09/2008 coverage by the Miami Herald here. Click here for Wackenhut's response available on the Miami Herald. The Miami Herald reports "AUDIT: SECURITY FIRM OVERBILLED DADE MILLIONS" Miami Herald editorial: Answers needed on overbilling claims Miami Herald reports: FPL fined over sleeping security guards Miami Herald reports: 30 months after it began, Metrorail 'ghost posts' audit still pending Trade Journal Risk Management, a magazine that provides news and analysis for corporate risk managers, reports on Wackenhut. Wackenhut: A business of character?
Columbia College: Student government weighs in on Wackenhut, Members of the senate unhappy with choice of security "The Student Government Association approved a resolution on behalf of the college's students asking the administration to switch security companies," reports The Columbia Chronicle, March 2008. Senate Hearing on the State of Security at Nuclear Power Plants Further Questions Wackenhut's Role in Nuclear Industry Members of the Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety demanded answers to outstanding questions regarding video of sleeping guards at the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania that was released on CBS-TV last fall. Following the video, the nation's largest nuclear plant operator, fired Wackenhut from all ten of Exelon's nuclear power plants. According to Exelon CEO John Rowe, "We felt the incident with the guards was the last straw." My hope is that we take that lesson we learned at Peach Bottom and fully spread that lesson across the country, said Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., who chairs the subcommittee. Press Coverage: "Pennsylvania Nuclear Plant Investigated," Associated Press "Nuclear Oversight Comes Under Fire
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports Wackenhut replaced at Kewaunee nuclear plant near Green Bay, Wisconsin Mark Kanz, a spokesman for the owners of the plant, said they had not had "performance problems with Wackenhut," and that they had "been planning to bring security in-house for some time." These claims are suspicious in light of Wackenhut's recent track history of poor performance at other nuclear plants throughout the country, which is summarized in the article. Read the whole 2/17/08 story here.
Congressman Brady Applauds New Legislation to Enhance Federal Oversight of Nuclear Weapons-Related Sites According to an official press release, "The new legislation includes Brady-backed language which will improve national security by examining problems raised by using private contractors to guard nuclear weapons-related sites. Feds: 7 Guards Caught Sleeping at Tenn. Nuclear Weapons Plant "KNOXVILLE, Tenn. Seven guards have been caught sleeping at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge since 2000, a federal spokesman said Wednesday. Three were fired and the rest were disciplined, said Steven Wyatt, spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, a Department of Energy unit that oversees the Y-12 complex," reports the AP. Read the January 16th story here.
Washington Post: The Reckoning "Corporate Candor" "Truthfulness is one of those core values that companies either incorporate into their cultures or they don't. So it should be no surprise that when Group 4 Securicor, the British corporate security company, issued a statement last week announcing the departure of Gary Sanders, president of its Wackenhut U.S. subsidiary, it attributed the move to a "realignment of reporting structure." Read the January 13, 2008 column here.
Wackenhut guards - hired to protect historic Philadelphia post- 9/11 - describe less-than-ideal working conditions and a struggle to unionise. Read the January 10, 2008 story here "Metro May Have Paid For Absent Security Guards At Commission" "The city may have been paying for security guards at the Davidson County Election Commission who were not on the clock, Nashville Mayor Karl Dean said Tuesday. Washington Post: "Executive Resigns in Storm Over Sleeping Guards" "Wackenhut, a private security firm that guards 21 commercial nuclear power plants around the United States, said yesterday that its chief executive resigned during continuing controversy about guards caught napping at a Pennsylvania reactor last year," reported the Washington Post on January 10th. Washington Post: Video of Sleeping Guards Shakes Nuclear IndustryIn Steven Mufson's January 4, 2008 article, nuclear industry leaders question Wackenhut standards after sleeping incidents at nuclear plants:
Thousands of passengers protest the scant security on the Metrorail and Metromover. Nevertheless, while we taxpayers shell out millions of dollars for security guards, the protection we get is from "phantoms, according to allegations that have been under investigation for months by Miami-Dade government auditors. The Wackenhut Corp., which was granted a no-bid $89-million contract to safeguard the rail and bus network for five years, is facing accusations that it billed the county for services of guards who were absent from their posts," Daniel Shoer Roth says in the 12/16/2007 column. I ask, then, why don't County authorities move faster with the audit? If that can be done, why haven't they beefed up train platform security temporarily with municipal police, especially at night? Do they not care about the security of our citizens or are they waiting for a tragedy to begin caring about protecting the passengers? Read in Spanish at El Nuevo Herlad's site here. SEIU Congratulates Exelon For "Doing the Right Thing" SEIU issued this statement in a press release on Friday, December 14, 2007, after the Exelon Corporation announced that it was terminating Wackenhut at its 10 nuclear facilities. "Congratulations to Exelon for doing the right thing by terminating Wackenhut, said Tom Balanoff, international vice president of SEIU. It would be common sense for Exelon to make a clean sweep of Wackenhut at all their facilities. "The blame here lies squarely with Wackenhut management. The workers are eager to protect the public, and to be treated fairly. We trust that Exelon will take advantage of a trained security workforce by retaining these guards. Wackenhut's pattern of overworking and underpaying their security guards will no longer be the norm." NEWS COVERAGE
Investigators Raid Wackenhut's Headquarters MIAMI -- Miami-Dade and federal investigators raided the headquarters Friday night of one of the county's largest government contractors. NBC 6 was the first to report in May that Wackenhut Security is under a criminal investigation for overbilling taxpayers millions of dollars, money for work on transit and the downtown juvenile center. See the rest of the NBC6 story here. Wackenhut Faces Debarment from the City of Los Angeles
The City of Los Angeles is launching an investigation into security contractor Wackenhut Corporation/G4S' compliance with the city's Responsible Contractor Policy, a probe that could result in debarment from city contracts for five years. Prior to the investigation, Wackenhut had more than $5 million annually in contracts with the City of Los Angeles to guard at least two dozen buildings and public places. In addition to launching the investigation, Los Angeles did not select Wackenhut for future city work worth up to an estimated $20 million over three years.
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