No talking, no texting... no unions?

June 12, 2023 7:29 AM

Newsradio station 1010 WINS is reporting that two days after projectionists at a NYC-area Alamo Drafthouse (it isn't clear which, there are three (four if you count Yonkers)) filed a petition to unionize with the National Labor Review Board, Alamo sent an internal email notifying staff of the company's intention to do away with the projectionist position and replace it with a more expansive “technical engineer” role.

This comes slightly more than a year after employees at the theater chain's flagship location in South Lamar, TX formed a union with the assistance of the IWW, although that location has also had to deal with reluctant management and illegal retaliation against protesting workers.

If you'd like to leave a comment (such as the one I'm going to leave today when I cancel my Alamo Season Pass), the contact form for the NYC-area Drafthouses can be found here.

Related:
--The ScreenSlate podcast interviews veteran projectionist Genevieve Havemeyer-King about union-busting, the rushed conversion to digital projection, and many other topics.

--According to the Economic Policy Institute, employers spend more than $400 million per year on ‘union-avoidance’ consultants

posted by The Pluto Gangsta (36 comments total)

All I know is, Alamo used to be cool. They were clearly run by people who loved movies, all kinds of movies, and they built a great business around it. Before they came around it was totally normal for people to bring their babies and toddlers with them to R-rated films at 10pm at night, and be on their phones, and fuck around during the film. And Alamo made it okay to say fuck off, I didnt' come here for this shit. And plus they had beer and good food and was filled with people who loved movies and loved talking about movies.

Now everybody serves beer and a lot of other chains show old movies based on themes, and I can see 95% of the stuff the Alamo shows on bigger screens, in cleaner theaters, with better food, without any servers walking through all the time.

So in conclusion, I hope the projectionists unionize, but honestly if there are other venues available to them, they should just go there.
posted by nushustu at 7:49 AM on June 12, 2023 [13 favorites]

Aw, man
posted by Going To Maine at 7:51 AM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

It is completely unsurprising that a company that turned a blind eye to sexual harassment and assault would wind up engaging in blatant unionbusting as well.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:14 AM on June 12, 2023 [17 favorites]

Goddamnit. Alamo recently opened a location here, and I've been excited about going to the movies again, but fuck this union-busting shit.
posted by jedicus at 8:23 AM on June 12, 2023

Just to be pedantic, South Lamar is not a town in Texas, but a location in Austin. But the overall point is spot on. I lived in Austin well before they opened, but it seems like a textbook example of what happens when a company has some initial success and decides growth and profits are more important than their original goal, which was showing eclectic movies in a relaxed atmosphere. See also enshittification.
posted by TedW at 9:24 AM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm always a little wary of businesses which take a mass-market service/product and wrap it in an indulgent level of personalized attention. I'm sure Alamo delivers a better movie-going experience, but it also seems like a big part of their brand is being lux for the sake of lux and fostering a customer base that couldn't bear to suffer the indignity of going back to an ordinary multiplex. It seems like that kind of environment is always ripe for shitty behind-the-scenes behavior like this.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:41 AM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

Somewhat OT, but Alamo isn't the only outwardly-progressive company engaging in union-busting. I work for REI and am dismayed to report egregious union-busting, particularly at the SoHo and Durham, NC locations.

You can learn more by following REI Union SoHo and REI Union Durham on Instagram.
posted by workerant at 9:46 AM on June 12, 2023 [20 favorites]

"it also seems like a big part of their brand is being lux for the sake of lux and fostering a customer base that couldn't bear to suffer the indignity of going back to an ordinary multiplex."

This is a mischaracterization of their brand and appeal imo. The Alamo brand caters to cinephiles, to young people who love cult and horror movies, and to people who like to feel like they are part of a film-loving community. It's nice to be able to order a cocktail during the movie, but the food is gross and nobody would ever accuse most of their programming of being particularly highbrow unless you think "a movie with subtitles" is something only snobs enjoy.
posted by cakelite at 10:00 AM on June 12, 2023 [7 favorites]

Does being lux for the sake of lux mean "no ads"? Because that's the big draw of the Alamo for me.

That said, I guess I'm going to be watching my lux arthouse movies at the Angelika because Alamo, I am disappoint. AGAIN.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 10:21 AM on June 12, 2023

I think it is worth noting that Alamo went bankrupt during the pandemic, and the original owners ended up selling the smoking ruins to a private equity firm

In other words, the company is bleeding badly (being bought by PE usually worsens your financial situation) and they are desperate for any kind of cost cuts

They clearly do not care what happens to the quality of the experience
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 10:29 AM on June 12, 2023 [30 favorites]

it also seems like a big part of their brand is being lux for the sake of lux and fostering a customer base that couldn't bear to suffer the indignity of going back to an ordinary multiplex.

As someone part of that sort of customer base (your "lux" definition, not what the Alamo actually is, which cakelite explains), what's wrong with that? In my eyes, one of biggest commercial consequences of Covid was that it drove Pacific Theaters (and therefore ArcLight) out of business. One of the high points of the ArcLights was that its weeded out customers that weren't serious enough about the experience that they weren't willing to pay $25+ to see a movie. All the fancy stuff that $25+ got you (no ads, booze, movies in the Cinerama Dome) was a bonus.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 10:30 AM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

Wait, $$$25 per movie?!? Weeding out people who can't pay that much? I'll be up against the wall with you when the revolution comes, but we pay £200 (about $250 atm) for the year and factor in 30 minutes of trailers and adverts for a mainstream release -- but we've been caught out by on-time starts for re-releases and specials. (Britain boozes competently, so there's beer or wine available and no restriction on bringing your own snacks from home.)

Buyout by Private Equity is marginally better than phoenix-ing a company from pretend-receivership and stiffing suppliers and investors while you let the directors carry the f_ck on. May the collective workforce get what they're owed.
posted by k3ninho at 10:57 AM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

The Alamo came about when theaters like it pretty much didn't exist, outside of maybe the Nighthawk in Brooklyn. At the time it was revolutionary and refreshing to go see arthouse films in an environment with food and beer, where the theater was on the side of people who didn't want phones going off or people talking during the film. It filled niche! Now lots of theaters have food and reclining plush seats, due in no small part to the emphasis on the filmgoing experience spearheaded by the Alamo.

The idea that fancy movie theaters are somehow bad is really weird.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:58 AM on June 12, 2023 [6 favorites]

but we pay £200 (about $250 atm) for the year

I spent significantly more than $250 the last year I was within driving distance of the Sunset ArcLight, so not sure that your comment is saying, unless it's how cheap movies seem to be in the UK.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 11:21 AM on June 12, 2023

I am always somewhat amazed when employers union-bust, because the whole process of unionizing is basically a referendum on whether you are in a "good job" and trust management. The second you retaliate against your employees you prove that organized representation is necessary.

I wonder if there is some study out there that looks at what "successful" resistance to unionization looks like. I would imagine projecting confidence that you are a great place to work is key (rather than firing the people who do the projecting for you).
posted by anhedonic at 11:28 AM on June 12, 2023 [6 favorites]

Look folks: just because you like the goods or services offered by a particular corporation doesn't mean it's good to its workers. Or vice versa.
posted by splitpeasoup at 12:39 PM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

it also seems like a big part of their brand is being lux for the sake of lux and fostering a customer base that couldn't bear to suffer the indignity of going back to an ordinary multiplex.

The thing is, that wasn't Alamo's brand at all. It was definitely more of a midnight-movie, cult classic, remember-when-movies-were-fun? kind of place. Sure they showed first runs, but the real draw was Weird Wednesdays, when they showed old exploitation horror films, and Master Pancake Theater, when comedians would basically do MST3K live, and FantasticFest, when HUGE names -- Carpenter, Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez -- would come and showcase their own films, or just films they loved, and you could find all of these people who just LOVED movies. And it didn't hurt that they served beer which was Not A Thing at movie theaters in the US at the time. And they insisted you put away your phones and leave the kids at home. It was awesome.

And yes, sure some of these things were expensive. But often when you'd go to a special showing, you'd get props to keep. Recently I went to a showing of Shaun of the Dead and got a Foree Electric nametag keychain, an inflatable cricket bat, and an alamo drafthouse necktie (red obviously.)

Those were fun times, and they still sort of do them, but it just isn't like it used to be. It used to be a theater that wanted to do wacky stuff and played first-run films to fund that stuff, and now it feels like a first-run theater chain that has a small budget set aside to do wacky stuff, like it was just a coffee maker in an office breakroom.
posted by nushustu at 2:04 PM on June 12, 2023 [4 favorites]

It was awesome.

Not for the staff who were dodging hurled chairs and having patrons sexually harass them while management turned a blind eye.

The whole problem was that Alamo Drafthouse was stood up as "fighting for the moviegoer" while enabling abusers like Knowles and Faraci and subjecting their employees to abuse from management and patrons, as this article on their Kansas City location details. All that "awesomeness" was built on a rotten, abusive ediface that many people were forced to endure till they couldn't anymore.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:09 PM on June 12, 2023 [6 favorites]

Fuck them for union busting, and fuck them right in the ear for every time I've been trying to enjoy a movie while some troglodyte behind me sucks on chicken wings like we're in a famine. None of the theaters near me are theaters anymore; they're all shitty restaurants that happen to show movies. Most of the filmgoing I do now is at local universities where they don't allow food in the theater, which is blissful.
posted by goatdog at 3:56 PM on June 12, 2023

Alamo was a thing before Nitehawk, just not in New York. Nitehawk isn’t that old—somewhere around 12 years?—and they did a lot of the lobbying work in Albany to let movie theaters get liquor licenses, which Alamo then capitalized on.

(God, I miss Syndicated)
posted by thecaddy at 4:04 PM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

Not for the staff who were dodging hurled chairs and having patrons sexually harass them while management turned a blind eye.

No doubt. I'm not arguing it didn't always suck for the employees; I'm saying it used to not suck for the patrons, and now they don't even have that.
posted by nushustu at 4:50 PM on June 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

How is this not the definition of unfair labor practice? Pretty sure they're going to get sued over this.
posted by daHIFI at 4:54 PM on June 12, 2023

+1 on the boo to union busting. (I remember when projectionists had a strong union. But that was back when it meant working in a steel lined fireproof booth, because celluloid film stock was basically a class 3 explosive. And sound amplification required arcane knowledge of vacuum tubes and MOSFET circuits.)

+1 also to the Enshittification angle. I too remember when the original South Lamar location was a tourist attraction, a unique reason to visit Austin. The only place where you could spend an afternoon watching a triple feature of Tom Savini movies, hosted by Tom Savini, where you could order tacos and beer during the Q&A between movies.

Because that was NOT what you were getting at the generic Cineplex 8 at the mall everywhere else at the time. So you'd tell your friends and they'd sigh and say 'I wish they did something like that here.'
When I heard that 'Alamo' had become a national brand, I assumed (apparently correctly) that they had only done the 'you can order food! and beer!' part and neglected the 'that was an outstanding movie going experience' part.

Oh Well. Enshittification. Everything eventually becomes crabs.
Maybe the next trend will be for small theaters to bring back four-walling. Or roadshow screenings. Sing alongs & bingo.

I sometimes wish that the kind of people who dream about having a bijoux theater of their own. That only showed black and white movies. And was only open when it rained. Sigh.
were the kind of people who could do that as the front for their money laundering operation. Or needed the tax write off in order to stave off the wealth confiscation squad or whatever.
I would prefer many more 'HOW does that place stay open these days' theaters to a world where I roll my eyes and say 'OF COURSE that's how theaters stay open these days' at situations like this.
posted by bartleby at 5:15 PM on June 12, 2023 [4 favorites]

And all you have to do is ignore the abuse the staff got
Yes all the abuse in Kansas City. That I, a tourist, actively chose to ignore. From Texas. Three years before the KC location opened.

Nox, I promise to forgive you for your complicity in the Great Ocelot Slaughter of 2033. Even though you are right this moment in denial about how your words today are in support of the events that will have been occurred in Madagascar when they were revealed to the public twenty years from now.

You could have chosen in the future to have be a better person in the past, in response to things that haven't happened yet. But you chose to turn a blind eye. Yet I forgive you. You are still worthy of love.
posted by bartleby at 7:02 PM on June 12, 2023 [4 favorites]

And all you have to do is ignore the abuse the staff got. I'd much rather have fewer "fun events" and staff treated decently.

por qué no los dos? I've never been to Kansas City, and I was a pretty good patron, so I'm having a hard time understanding why I should feel guilty about having a good time watching movies in the early 2000s.
posted by nushustu at 7:38 PM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

Are you seriously arguing that, because some people in my vicinity were, unbeknownst to me, bad people, that I should look back on those fun experiences and say "man I cannot believe I had fun while some bad things were happening"? Because there isn't an article in the world that is going to convince me to stop enjoying life just because there is suffering in the world.
posted by nushustu at 7:40 PM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

I was also an Alamo-goer in Austin during the 2000s and 2010s. Tim League and the Drafthouse folks did a lot of good stuff for the local community, both charitable events and working with the local film and music community. They put on a lot of programming that was fun and people enjoyed. AND it's also clear that League personally set a tone for shitty management that rolled downhill on to workers, countenanced abusers in his professional/personal circles, and has been and continues to be a union-buster.

"I had fun at Drafthouse shows" does not negate "it was/is shitty to work at the Drafthouse". Nor does "It was/is shitty to work at the Drafthouse" negate "the Drafthouse put on some fun shows". League hit on a formula for making movies and movie-related events fun, but most of what he did doesn't require mistreating the staff or countenancing abuse directed at staff. (Possible exception: I love the no-talking rule but that requires serious management backup in a world where any old asshole at a theater might be packing heat. If they're committed to that rule they have to be willing to walk the walk.)

I want a world in which a movie theater can put on fun shows (not just movies, but things like live-score silent films, the String Quartet Smackdown, dance parties, teas/brunches/etc.) AND do well by its workers. Maybe I should ask for a pony, too, in this late-stage capitalistic hells cape, but that's what I want. I'm bummed that the Drafthouse is failing on one of the parts of that equation.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 8:00 PM on June 12, 2023 [4 favorites]

you choose to ignore that history

Bruh nobody is doing that. I'm just saying it used to suck for employees but it was fun for patrons. Now it sucks for employees and sucks for patrons, and while I hope the employees are able to unionize and be treated better, maybe they should all find some place that is better, just like I, one of the patrons, did.
posted by nushustu at 8:11 PM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

Does this (from the article on the KC location) means they were reporting fewer ticket sales to the film distributors than they actually sold?

“They’d void out sometimes hundreds of tickets,” Wes says. “It’d be under someone’s ticket taker login, and they’d void out Meet the Fockers or whatever. I’d say ‘Is this legal?’ and they’d be like ‘Don’t ask about it.’”

posted by ASCII Costanza head at 8:21 PM on June 12, 2023

Can we get off this derail please? No one in this thread appears to be minimizing the abuse and harm done to employees. That folks had a positive experience before learning of the abuse and general shorty labor practices doesn’t make them complicit. Abusers cultivate goodwill from outside people or groups, and can be quite good at covering up their abuse. That is not the fault of the outside folks who have no access to knowledge about the abuse. Once folks do learn of abuse, they bear some responsibility if they look the other way, but that doesn’t retroactively extend to before they learned of the abuse. Abusers are also human, not purely evil monsters, which means that sometimes even victims of abuse have complicated feelings toward their abusers. Taking a hard line, black-and-white approach harms such victims (which, if we’re talking domestic violence, is the majority of them), by making people question of what they are experiencing is really abuse when they also have some positive feelings toward their abusers, and by making people disbelieve those who don’t act the “perfect victim” role.
posted by eviemath at 8:45 PM on June 12, 2023 [3 favorites]

I read the KC article; I've read commentary on the situation from people in Austin involved in Drafthouse business and protesting against it off and on since the Devin Faraci thing broke; this is not news to anybody who follows the Drafthouse or lives/lived in Austin and follows film news. I don't know why it's so important to you that people who have enjoyed events or films at the Drafthouse submit to your opinions on the Drafthouse but I disagree with your take, not on the Drafthouse, but how the rest of the people commenting in the thread can talk about our experiences and our feelings.

I have a three-strikes rule for repeating myself but this conversation isn't worth any more strikes. I'm finished with this line of conversation with you, NoxAeternum; have a nice night.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 9:39 PM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

It’s weird, here in Portland it’s kind of hard to find a movie theater that doesn’t serve beer and halfway-decent food.
posted by gottabefunky at 10:33 PM on June 12, 2023

Mod note: Several deleted; apologies to all that now some comments will be a bit confusing. NoxAeternum, please refresh yourself on site guidelines: Speak for yourself, not others; be considerate and respectful; add your own informed perspective and nuance instead of shutting others down. Extend the benefit of the doubt in conversations. Be aware of how much space you are occupying in a discussion. Don't attack or insult other members, don't try to control the conversation, don't put words in other people's mouths. Don't tell people what they do and do not care about. Etc. Continuation of this sort of engagement will result in time out or permanent ban.
posted by taz (staff) at 10:38 PM on June 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

(Sorry for adding to the derail.)
posted by nushustu at 7:08 AM on June 13, 2023

I have talked about this before, but I lived in Austin for a couple of years around 2000, and, if you weren't there, you have no idea what a great place it was to watch movies. Between the Alamo Drafthouse, the Austin Film Society, and that Landmark multiplex inside that weird dorm/mall on Guadaloupe, you could have your pick of really interesting movies almost any night of the week. The Alamo, in particular, was close to my heart. It was the site of first dates, raucous late night shows, places to hide when the stress of school, work, and/or life became too much. It was a place close to my heart. Since my time there was relatively early in the Alamo's history, before the expansions and the franchises, and everything else, I desperately hope that it wasn't such a shitshow then. Even if it wasn't, my heart broke when I learned that the Alamo management had been complicit in Knowles' sexual abuse, and it's broken again to see that not only has it become (if it wasn't already) an abusive workplace itself. I haven't been to the Alamo or a franchise in nearly 20 years, and I won't go again, but it was a magical place once upon a time, and it's bitter and galling that we don't get to even have this -- everything that caters to fannish niche interests seems to eventually turn out to be a cesspool.

And this thread managed to make me feel worse than the articles. Well that's just great.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:43 PM on June 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

(Also sorry for adding to the derail, happy to have any comments of mine that make no sense deleted as well, thanks mods!)
posted by gentlyepigrams at 8:33 PM on June 14, 2023