A raucous group of more than 50 security guards and their supporters gathered in front of the Glendale Center on Wednesday to protest Maguire Properties, a company organizers said has hindered their efforts to unionize.

Maguire Properties owns the Glendale Center at 611 N. Brand Blvd., and is one of the largest landowners in downtown Los Angeles, with nine office buildings, hotels and parking structures totaling more than 10 million square feet. Its major tenants include Wells Fargo, Sempra Energy, Washington Mutual and the Southern California Gas Co., according to the company's website and Hoovers, a business research firm.

The company's owner, Robert Maguire has publicly opposed unionization efforts by the security guards that patrol his buildings, which include some of the Southland's most prestigious high-rises. Neither Maguire nor representatives of his company were available for comment Wednesday.

But the more than 250 guards that work for Maguire Properties are underpaid and undertrained, and union organization would go a long way toward improving their lot, said Terence Long spokesman for the Service Employees International Union.

"[Service Employees International Union] is the largest security guard union in the country and in every other major city, from San Francisco to Chicago to New York, security guards are part of the [union]," said Long, whose union Local 1877 organized Wednesday's protest. "For some reason Maguire is the only major building owner in Los Angeles publicly opposing unionization."

Since Sept. 11, 2001, duties and responsibilities for security guards have increased substantially, but wages and training have failed to keep pace, Long said. The median wage for security officers in Los Angeles County is $8.44 an hour, which has only gone up about nine cents an hour in the last six years, according to Service Employees International Union statistics.

Most of the security guards working in the Los Angeles area do not work directly for the buildings they secure, but are employed by security contracting companies, which hire out their guards to the various landlords, Long said.

"Right now security contractors are in a competitive spiral to the bottom, and building owners can switch contractors with a month's notice," he said. "The contractors have to fight bidding wars, cut costs and as a result, it is the security guards that suffer."

By securing union contracts for their employees, the security contractors can concentrate on better training and coordination with police and fire departments, while reducing the industry's high turnover rate, Long added.

Among the protesters in the Glendale Center courtyard Wednesday was Glendale City Councilman Frank Quintero.

"I just find it ironic that we are spending billions of dollars to defend the country against terrorist threats but we have a security guard situation here in our city with high turnover and poor training," Quintero said, as demonstrators shook noisemakers, banged drums and chanted slogans with the help of a microphone and amplifier.

The fact that 90% of Los Angeles security officers are African American or Latino makes Maguire's anti-union policy discriminatory, said the Rev. Alexia Salvatierra of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice.

"We want security guards to have the same rights as janitors, because those rights lead to a living wage and lead to good benefits," said Salvatierra, whose group joined the union in presenting a petition letter to Maguire representatives at the Glendale Center. "Mr. Maguire has to allow these people to exercise their civil rights and human rights to choose their own union. He may be a good man in is heart, but this is a racist policy."

The Service Employees International Union Local 1877 represents janitors, racetrack workers and security guards at Dodger Stadium and Disneyland. Its membership numbers 13,000 in Southern California and 26,000 statewide.