Longtime Employee Sheds Light on Cinema Village Union

By Anthony Paradiso

A month ago, I wrote a story about how workers at the oldest continuously operated cinema in Greenwich Village formed a union. The Cinema Village staff union has been certified and only needs a new contract with management.

Lee Peterson has worked for Cinema Village for 13 years, so he’s seen it all. He says he’s always there to meet the demands of the customers while management is not. He voiced his concerns about management running an independent theater in a ‘hands-off’ manner.

“The thing is—on a day-to-day basis—the staff runs the theater because management is not on site. Theirs are not the boots on the ground and ours are, so we see the ebb and flow, we see when customers are happy and satisfied and when they’re not. That’s ultimately on us and we need to have more control over that situation,” he said.

Now that Cinema Village’s union is certified it has entered into the “status-quo period.” During this time the ownership can no longer make changes to “mandatory subjects of bargaining” unless the two sides negotiate. This is legalese for things concerning wages, health insurance and all terms and conditions of employment.

However, part of the problem is that while things are progressing and hopefully negotiations on a healthier relationship between staff and management will commence soon, the theater is struggling to “draw much income” as reported in The Hollywood Reporter in April.

“The over-arching thing is that we’re not trying to hurt anybody’s bottom-line. God, we want this theater to thrive,” said Peterson. “I’ve been here for a long time, longer than anybody else. I know we’re not meeting our potential and yes, the film exhibition landscape has changed since COVID, so it’s a question of adapting. We have great ideas. I’ve done booking myself, I used to run the Pioneer Theater on the Lower East Side so I’m not speaking out of my butt when I say things could be better programming-wise.”

The owner of Cinema Village, Nick Nicolaou, responded to an email with this message: “We will bargain in good faith with regard to terms and conditions of employment for all union members. We look forward to a positive relationship with the Union. Please be assured that we have not and will not retaliate against any of our employees for engaging in union activity.”

This is a step forward but, according to Peterson, the problems between staff and management lie deeper than that. “We’re just met with resistance on pretty much everything that would give us a sense of ownership,” he said. “That’s a really important in any work situation. If you feel a sense of ownership, if you care about the place, you’re going to work harder and everything follows. Bottom line is, we’re not trying to stick it to the man just to get more money. Money’s obviously a concern as it is with every job. We all need more money but there are other concerns as well.”

He explained that theaters can attract more moviegoers and make more money by hosting Q & As with the filmmakers and stars of a particular movie. This is what separates an independent theater like Cinema Village from AMC and Regal. This is exactly what Cinema Village needs to do but isn’t doing enough of. When they do get the filmmakers to come to a premiere, the reward is a big crowd.

“One of the things we’re good at, as an Indie theater, is getting closer to the filmmakers. OK Mad Max opens at Regal. George Miller, the director isn’t coming to Regal. Whereas with independent films that is the case,” said Peterson. “We have a big private Indie film screening tonight. It’s going to be huge, with celebrities and the whole thing, but you have to give people something extra. The filmmaker is going to be here for a Q & A afterwards, that’s something you can’t get at home. Folks may even meet the star of the movie and get an autograph. That’s the kind of thing you have to do to adapt and that’s what we want to do.”

The staff at Cinema Village is not alone. When they certified, Cinema Village joined a list of other New York City independent theaters that have unionized in recent years which includes Anthology Film Archives, Film Forum, and Nitehawk. Peterson said that a coalition of “organized theater people” including Cinema Village has been formed and they have had several meetings already. However, Cinema Village is the only one of the theaters whose number one priority is fixing programming.

As Cinema Village’s staff waits to go to the bargaining table, Peterson expressed feeling “heartened” at the way that some of his younger co-workers have stood up for their rights throughout the unionization process.

He said, “I come from a time when there was a lot of anti-union propaganda—there still is. I certainly listened to that growing up—‘unions are all crooked, they’ll just take your money.’ So, I had to overcome that when I joined my first union over at Strand. It’s pretty heartening to see this generation who are around 25, who are super motivated to stand up for their own rights. I don’t know if it’s COVID that we can thank that made people hyper aware of the inequities of the system. Now people are like, ‘hey, I’m not going to stand for this anymore. I’m going to stand up for my rights.’ It’s really heartening to see this new generation embracing that—so the kids are alright!”