Local Theater Staff Seeks to Unionize

By Anthony J. Paradiso

While I was delivering newspapers to Cinema Village a worker named Jack Peterson told me that ten members of the theater’s staff were looking to start a union. In late April, the Cinema Village staff held a vote to determine if they would unionize and the result was a unanimous victory for the workers. This means they now have a union, but the question is what they will do with this new strength. Peterson answered four questions I had about this historic move for the oldest continuously operated cinema in Greenwich Village.

Why do the workers at Cinema Village want to start a Union?
The catalyst for me personally, and what led to us actually starting the process, was a recent email from our boss wherein he denied my request for a raise. I had never received a raise despite being with the theater for 2.5 years, and six of my coworkers (who have also been at the theater for a long time) have never received raises either. Management told us in writing that none of us would be receiving raises for all of 2024 at least. They blamed the actors/writers strike on this—while the dual strikes definitely affected the movie business, they’re likely to have no effect on Cinema Village, since we rely on independent films and rentals that were not affected. Right now, almost all of the staff at CV are paid minimum wage, and to my knowledge there is nobody on staff paid more than $20/hr. We also do not receive health care despite being full-time workers, have no additional benefits, and are routinely disrespected by management whether we’re asking for benefits or just trying to do our jobs.

How does starting a Union work?
To get started, we took inspiration from the local theaters—Alamo Drafthouse, Nitehawk, Film Forum, Anthology, and many others who have unionized in the last two years. We contacted theater representatives UAW Local 2179. Their VP Will Bobrowski helped us from the ground up getting organized. We started by gauging interest from employees, and had enough support to begin collecting union cards, then ultimately filing through the union on April 5th. Despite plenty of resistance from management, we held our vote on April 26th and won unanimously. Management tried to challenge several votes but it didn’t work and the result was 6-0 in favor of the workers.

What programming can be added to the theater to help make it more profitable?
Cinema Village has had a long history of presenting subversive content and premiering movies that other theaters wouldn’t play. We were the first theater to play David Lynch’s Eraserhead, and one of the only theaters to play The Interview in 2014 after North Korea threatened Sony over its release. Over the years, though, the booking has been moved offsite and input has been taken away from employees. Nearly every idea our employees has pitched since our current booker took over (employees used to set up events all the time) has been shot down with no explanation. We have started to rely on four-wall rentals—large fees being paid to the theater for us to play terrible movies that nobody actually comes to. Studios have begun to look to us as a spot to play their movies long after the other theaters have dropped them—i.e. playing a June A24 release in August—which is not sustainable either. Anyway, what would make the theater more profitable would be two things: a) rely more on one-time screenings or smaller movies that have large niche audiences. We used to screen movies constantly in conjunction with local favorites like Forbidden Planet, Fangoria, etc. that attracted large audiences in the horror community, yet when our current booker took over he inexplicably canceled these. We have a variety of filmmakers who are huge fans of Cinema Village, yet we never reach out to them to work together. Whenever we do, the money rolls in and we strengthen relationships with industry people. The other option is b) de-emphasizing the second-run strategy. We are the only theater in the area that consistently plays movies long after their premieres instead of opening the movies when they first open at other theaters. We understand that there are studios that prefer to open their movies at larger theaters, but then it’s on us to try harder. We need to be the only theater playing certain movies, otherwise why are we here?

What is the next step for Cinema Village’s staff to ensure that the process of starting a union goes smoothly?
I think the next step is to work together closely to make sure we a) all contribute demands to the process of our contract negotiations and b) really feel like we are all a team. Management has begun encouraging some employees to scab, or turn against their coworkers for higher positions outside of the union, and that mentality is so self-destructive. Luckily, it didn’t catch on enough to influence the election, but it’s simply important for us to remember that we ten employees are all on the same side, and the only way to effect change as employees is to stand up for ourselves and not accept the minimum.