All workers in playgrounds and places of amusement and recreation. All professional entertainers.
Submitted by x344543 on Fri, 08/17/2007 - 4:20am
Dear Friends,
A dozen years ago I was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure. At that time I was finding it increasingly difficult to follow my trade. I stopped touring and pretty well assumed that my performing life was over. It was a very difficult time, but we(Joanna and I)with the help of friends throughout the music world kept the ship afloat. Your help was the ark that bouyed us over those hard times. I created "Loafer's Glory-Hobo Jungle of the Mind", a syndicated radio show to make a living in one place. But the underwriting didn't materialize and so I found it necessary to go back to the stage, although in a more limited way. Fortunately through proper medication, particularly cordorone, exercise, yoga, diet and a 3-day-a week cardiac rehab class at the local hospital, I had become stronger, lighter, and more confident of my ability to travel and work. So, I suspended the radio show and all fund raising on our behalf and with the help of Jim Fleming and friends a nd comrades at Fl eming Artists, and of course the folk music community, I went back to work.
Submitted by x344543 on Mon, 03/19/2007 - 11:39pm
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.
Submitted by x345292 on Thu, 03/08/2007 - 3:45pm
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.
Submitted by x345292 on Thu, 01/11/2007 - 4:17am
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.
Submitted by x344543 on Fri, 01/05/2007 - 7:22pm
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.
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