PALM BEACH GARDENS, Florida – Wackenhut Services, Incorporated (WSI) Senior Vice President Dr. Lawrence Brede set the record straight regarding the quality of WSI’s work for the federal government during this week’s House Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization and Procurement hearing on Federal Contracting.

“We have consistently received high performance ratings,” Brede told the Subcommittee. “In addition, we’ve won numerous awards for our work - including the ‘South Carolina Governor’s Quality Award,’ the highest level of recognition in the South Carolina State Quality Award process, a similar award from the State of Nevada, and WSI Security Police Officers have won the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Security Police Officer Training Competition four years in a row, underscoring our technical competence.

“Given the subject of this hearing, I am surprised and disturbed at how WSI’s past performance on Government contracts could possibly be characterized as “poor,” considering the overwhelming evidence to the contrary,” he said. “The 8,000 men and women who work for Wackenhut Services are dedicated, hard-working, patriotic individuals. Most come from a military or law enforcement background and our protective forces include former Army Rangers and personnel from other special operations forces.”

“Our security contracts receive extensive, repeated scrutiny by the Government, not only by contracting officer technical representatives at the local level, but also by the DOE’s  Office of Independent Oversight, the GAO, the Defense Contract Audit Agency, and other ad hoc special review teams,” he added.

The DOE and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) recently selected WSI for the award of the 33,000-acre Oak Ridge Complex Protective Services Contracts. In   addition, WSI secures the 900,000 acre Nevada Test Site, one of the largest restricted areas in the U.S., housing some of the nation’s more critical assets. At the Savannah River Site, WSI provides protective force and associated support services at the 310 square mile site bordering on the Savannah River.

Brede said this continued excellence has come in the face of ongoing efforts by one of the nation’s largest labor unions to destroy WSI.

“For more than three years the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been involved in a ‘corporate campaign’ designed to ruin our company’s reputation,” Brede said. “They continue to make misleading and false statements about our record because we have refused to give in to SEIU demands to waive the right of our employees to choose the union they want to represent them.

The SEIU is trying to increase its membership through “corporate campaign” tactics such as picketing, hunger strikes, and harassment of target companies’ customers.

The unprincipled reputation of the union and its officials includes:

• SEIU filed a lawsuit, post 9/11, to try and overturn the law requiring federal baggage screeners at airports to be U.S. citizens.
• SEIU officials have been indicted or convicted of embezzlement of union funds.
• A former SEIU Local 99 president has been charged in a federal indictment with conspiracy and 17 counts of embezzling union funds as a result of an investigation into former Los Angeles City Councilman Martin Ludlow.
• A New York Sun business reporter said, “SEIU now seems to depend more on corporate intimidation rather than recruiting.
• The director of strategic research for the AFSCME union said, “UDW-AFSCME home-care workers across the state were tricked and coerced into signing membership cards with (SEIU) Local 434B.

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WSI is the United State’s government’s largest contractor for professional security services, with 8,000+ employees protecting key sites in the U.S. and abroad.  For additional information about WSI and this issue, please visit www.wsihq.com