Organized Labor - Helping More Pivotal Communities In Need
For those of you fearing the plight of movie theater employees, sleep easy now. Employees at Shattuck Cinemas in Berkekey are beginning the process of unionizing.
Workers at the downtown Shattuck Cinemas, owned by Landmark Theaters, who earn just above minimum wage with no health benefits, will have their say about whether they form a union.
The National Labor Relations Board has scheduled a vote for June 16, according to Harjit Singh Gill, organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World.
Twenty-two of the 28 workers petitioned the NLRB for the election.
Winning the vote “means the workers will be able to sit down at the negotiating table and make demands,” Gill said, noting that the right to form a union is just the beginning and that negotiating a contract will be the hard part.
I’m not sure where to begin with this one. For starters, I would hardly call working for a movie theater skilled labor, so replacement workers would be easy to come by. But visible protests could drive traffic from Shattuck Cinemas to the few other local theaters, and given the history of Berkeley to support organized labor, a strike could become a very costly endeavor for the theater.
The most interesting part about this is that Shattuck Cinemas is a part of Landmark Cinemas, a company renowned for its showings of independent, artistic, and restored classic films. It isn’t exactly the cash cow that AMC is. Landmark is also owned by Mark Cuban, but he has yet to comment on the matter.
I’m not sure what your point is, Ben. Most of the work done in this society is not “skilled” by your apparent definition of the word. Are you saying that the majority of people in this society are undeserving of, say, a negotiated contract with a grievance procedure?
Of course, with no onus on you to actually make informed comment, its easy for you to minimize or joke about the plight of working people. But if your had ever gets tired of being jammed up yer ass, you might want to talk to the people you write about to ask them why they are doing what they are doing. Theyll be happy to tell you about why they are unionizing, and youll find that these aren’t stupid college kids looking for a cause to jump on. They are doing this for good reason, not as entertainment, and that they go into it weighing the risks (which, for a person who needs a job to survive, are considerable, since if they get fired they could be seriously fucked). Thats a general principle — if an endeavor is risky or dangerous, people dont go into it lightly, and you might expect them to know more about it than you do.
The last thing I’d add is that most of cal grads probably think of themselves as “skilled” labor, separate from the folks that make up the backbone of the service economy which is the backbone of the US economy. But the sad fact is, given the above, the job market of the future for most of you is going to look increasingly like the job market of high school graduates who work at the gap (and thats if you are lucky). Think of that next time you walk into a walmart.
Comment by mano — June 1, 2006 @ 1:22 pm
yeah, whatever, working at a movie theater is a part time job for high school kids, not a full time job “for a person who needs a job to survive”. if they don’t like the rules, then fire them all and hire some other high school kids. and oh yeah, f*ck the unions.
Comment by brigadier anonymous — June 1, 2006 @ 2:32 pm
Ben,
You didnt notice something….IWW..thats the wobblies……They are socialists and anarchists….Not a terribly legit union these days. They were pretty much Stalinists and underwent significant government repression for their agitation. They are also trying to unionize Starbucks, one of the few companies I know with rather good employee satisfaction. I hope to God that these movie employees vote down this proposal from the IWW, its just asking for trouble.
Comment by Scab — June 1, 2006 @ 4:13 pm
no, … I know of Cal graduates working at the front desk of the Shattuck hotel, or in local retail, and my friend looked for a year for a job in 2004 with his computer science degree. Companies want several years experience in very specific skills, and mainly recruit through personal references.
Comment by cp — June 1, 2006 @ 6:07 pm
mano,
I must be unable to read between the lines, but Ben did not “define” skilled labor in the post. and his point holds - that these workers would be easy to replace, and therefore have little leverage. Not that they are undeserving of benefits.
Comment by grand ayatollah anonymous — June 1, 2006 @ 6:21 pm
There’s a bit of a difference between what’s deserved and what someone is obligated to give. Everyone deserves good health care. Doesn’t mean the wealthy have to provide it for us.
Comment by captain duh — June 2, 2006 @ 5:44 am
The point of a union is to give replaceable workers leverage. Irreplaceable workers don’t need unions.
Comment by Beetle — June 2, 2006 @ 8:44 am
You’re right, Beetle, but it presents a paradox, because what are traditionally considered unskilled labor unions (compare movie theater employees to grocery store workers and their failed strike a couple years ago) have problems because management can replace them with a marginal decrease in quality or increase in cost.
Unskilled labor unions have strength in numbers, but these 26 workers are not going to have an inordinate amount of leverage by themselves on this issue without highly visible protests and strong public sympathy.
Comment by Ben N. — June 2, 2006 @ 12:56 pm
Some jobs at the theatre actually do require a bit of skill. You or I could not walk off the street and become a projectionist.
Also, no job at a theatre is “easy.” Someone has to clean those filthy places up, and it may not take a philosophy degree, but whoever undertakes that horrific task deserves compensation.
Knee-jerk anti-unionism is annoying. But it’s also typical of someone who’s never had a boss.
NJ
Comment by N. Judah — June 2, 2006 @ 2:36 pm
labor unions started out as trades unions and guilds, which by definition involved skilled laborers with apprenticeship programs and the like.
labor unions in later industrialized capitalism and in recent US history have been used to pursue collective bargaining by both skilled and unskilled labor. and in this economy, most of the jobs are now service jobs, rather than factory jobs. most work is “replaceable” and as the economy becomes global, even higher level skilled laborers are finding that they too are easily replaced.
all of you are completely right that in most cases workers, esp most lower paid workers are easily replaced. but i dont think that most of you have a good feeling for how hard it is for most people your age in this country to make ends meet.
when it comes down to bread and butter issues, bullshit about who is entitled to what and your silly capitalist ideals go out the window. you can watch people looting in new orleans and shake your head, but what would you do in that situation? die? and you can shake your head when people try to unionize to make their working conditions (which translates to living conditions) better, but again, what would you do in the same situation. thank the boss, be a wiener, and embrace wage slavery?
the thing that makes me chuckle is that there are many of you undergrads who will make this choice in your lifetimes! while few people who are broadly admired in our society, or whose legacy you learn to appreciate in school, whose ideas you try to parrot back as your own in these little online debates, very few of them made the choice in their life to be lame little loser wieners. but i dont imagine having that knowledge will stop many of you from choosing the wiener path.
Comment by m a n o — June 2, 2006 @ 7:58 pm
f*ck the unions.
Comment by commodore anonymous — June 2, 2006 @ 8:37 pm
“Unskilled labor unions have strength in numbers, but these 26 workers are not going to have an inordinate amount of leverage by themselves on this issue without highly visible protests and strong public sympathy.”
Which they’ll get. The Berkeley community will stand by them if a strike is called, and deservedly so. I’ve always been lucky with finding decent employment, but if I were employed at that theatre, I would be agitating for union membership too.
Comment by Donald — June 3, 2006 @ 7:30 am
i will go to that theater every night if a strike is called.
Comment by brigadier anonymous — June 4, 2006 @ 1:55 pm