A week before a scheduled strike vote for 2,000 New Jersey security guards, their union staged a rally on Wednesday outside a public hospital in Newark where many of them work, demanding higher pay and training for what they say are their dangerous and increasingly complex jobs.
Several dozen members of Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union gathered outside University Hospital, a state-owned level 1 trauma center and teaching hospital affiliated with New Jersey Medical School of Rutgers University.
The union security guards included Najee Wagstaff, 34, who makes $21.13 an hour working at University Hospital for its security contractor, Allied Universal Security Services Inc., a global firm based in Irvine, California…