Recreational Workers Industrial Union 630

All workers in playgrounds and places of amusement and recreation. All professional entertainers.

Theater Staff Rallies For Public Support - Landmark Employees Demonstrate Amid Efforts to Unionize, Renegotiate Contract

Posted Mon, 03/19/2007 - 10:39pm by x344543

Article by Vincent Quan; Photo by Alex Chan, Daily Californian, Monday, March 19, 2007.

Singing songs of solidarity and workers’ rights, more than 80 Shattuck Cinemas employees, union members and residents rallied Friday evening to draw community support for the employees as they attempt to unionize and renegotiate their contract with Landmark Theatres.

The rally, which took place outside the Shattuck Cinemas in Downtown Berkeley, marks workers’ latest attempt to promote their eight-month effort to gain an expanded health care plan, seniority privileges and excused sick days.

The Berkeley City Council voted to support the workers in February.

PART TIME WORKERS WORK OVERTIME TO ORGANIZE I.W.W. UNION AT SHATTUCK CINEMAS

Posted Thu, 03/08/2007 - 2:45pm by x345292

One year later, the Shattuckunion continues to organize and grow with each new experience. Workers are putting on another Rally on March 16, 2007 at 6pm in front of the theater.

Shattuck union workers began holding organizing meetings in March 2006 and filed an election petition with the NLRB on May 08, 2006. Six weeks later workers voted overwhelmingly for the union. A month later negotiations with Landmark Cinemas began. Bargaining is ongoing and no agreement for a contract has been reached.

Community support has played an important role in elevating the struggle of the Shattuck workers to a new level. Growing confidence among the workers has enabled us to continue to become better union organizers and to explain the union to new hires.

IWW Shattuckunion Preparing for Contract Push

Posted Thu, 01/11/2007 - 3:17am by x345292

Workers at all Landmark Theaters in California were recently given a $.75 an hour raise.  This comes on top of the raise that workers received several months ago. Which occured shortly after the union election victory.

The previous raise was nationwide.  The recent raise to California employees is connected to the minimum wage or so Landmark Theater Co. says.   Whether or not the recent raise is connected to the minimum wage is debatable.  Most likely it is connected to the presence of a union at the Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley. 

Further evidence of the company doling out raises and benefits to keep more workers from going union is a health care plan that is now available to some workers.  Also holiday pay was restored to all shifts on Christmas and New Year after a one year absence.  As contract negotiations drag on in Berkeley, the company continues to come up with money they claimed they didn’t have.  Keeping the rest of their theaters union free is the likely reason for this. 

Mixed Results for Bay Area Labor Struggles in 2006

Posted Fri, 01/05/2007 - 6:22pm by x344543

By Judith Scherr - Berkeley Daily Planet, January 5, 2007

While several local long-term labor disputes ended happily for workers in 2006—Berkeley Honda, Alta Bates/Summit and Claremont Resort & Spa employees signed contracts after protracted struggles—workers at the Shattuck Cinema, Doubletree Hotel, UC Berkeley and the Woodfin Suite Hotel will continue to fight for better pay, benefits and working conditions in 2007.

Shattuck Cinema In Negotiations

While the hospitality industry becomes increasingly unionized, a movie-theater union is rare. In June, however, workers at the Shattuck Cinema, one of 56 Landmark Theaters, voted overwhelmingly to establish a union. One other Landmark Theater —the one in Cambridge, Mass.—is unionized.

But neither has successfully negotiated labor contracts.

“It’s a slow and tedious process,” said Hargitt Gill, organizer with the Industrial Workers of the World, better known as the Wobblies.

Soon after the union was voted in, the company voluntarily raised wages. Eligibility for partially-employer-paid benefits continues to be an issue, as is the question of the theater becoming a union shop, where every worker must belong to the union.

If negotiations are not successful, “we will be increasing the pressure, asking for the community to help us put more pressure on Landmark,” Gill said.

DC IWW Solidarity Picket at Landmark E Street Theater

Posted Wed, 11/29/2006 - 1:22pm by x344543

Saturday, November 18, 2006
Washington, DC

Tonight, members of the DC branch of the Industrial Workers of the World held an informational picket outside the Landmark E Street Cinema in DC. The picketers were showing their solidarity with Bay Area IWW members at the Landmark Shattuck Cinema in Berkley, CA, who are currently in contract negotiations with Landmark mangement.

The Shattuck workers voted overwhelmingly to join the IWW back in June of this year, and since then have been met with an unwillingness on the part of management to sit down and negotiate in good faith. To learn more about the Shattuck workers' fight, and how to get involved, visit shattuckunion.iww.org