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City leaders introduced the Aland Etienne Safety and Security Act, on Thursday.
The proposed bill would raise pay, expand benefits and require additional crisis training for the city’s nearly 82,000 private security officers.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams introduced the measure.
“The Aland Etienne Safety and Security Act will make New Yorkers safer by strengthening the ranks of trained, experienced security officers,” Adams said.
The measure would phase in new compensation and benefit standards over four years. In year one, the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection would establish a minimum hourly wage for private security officers. Subsequent years would phase in paid sick leave, vacation and holiday pay and a benefits supplement, supporters said.
The bill also requires employers to provide a supplemental 16 hours of crisis training, including emergency preparedness and active-shooter response, within an officer’s first 120 days, plus an eight-hour annual refresher course.
A UC Berkeley Labor Center analysis found private security officers in New York had a 77% turnover rate in 2024, compared with 69.3% in 2019.
The study says security officers in the city earn a median annual income of $40,311, less than 40% of the city’s area median income.
“Security officers are putting their lives on the line,” Candis Tall, executive vice president of 32BJ SEIU, said at the rally. “We need increased training, and we need to treat these workers with dignity and respect by paying them fairly.”
Etienne, a security officer at 345 Park Ave., was shot and killed July 28 while trying to stop a gunman from reaching the building’s elevator. Family members described him as a devoted father and someone who put others first.
