Alamo Drafthouse Theater workers in Texas voted for a sick-out while asking for a raise of at least $4 per hour. The publicized initiative reportedly led to a ticket sales decrease of 50% and cancellation of some season passes. Strategically speaking, the union scheduled the strike immediately prior to the Thor: Love and Thunder release. It’s a trick that not even Loki would pull.
We digress. This industry’s other developments run varied, far, and wide:
- Alaska-based AT&T employees voted to strike after failed Teamsters contract negotiations, which led to nearly no movement for wage increases. For Verizon Wireless retail workers, however, the CWA floodgates appear to be open. In Michigan and Oregon, the company’s workers filed for a union vote. These filings arrive on the heels of Verizon stores in the Seattle area becoming the first non-New York stores to successfully organize.
- HarperCollins (one of few large publishers with unionized workers) saw workers go on a UAW-led strike in Manhattan, where workers say that their salaries are not sustainable amid rising inflation and “record breaking profits” at the company.
- The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) waged a fall 2021 commercial crew walk-off, which has inspired various production teams to organize as a grassroots worker collective called Stand with Production. The group is currently in union card-check mode, and this is happening after the IATSE and Teamsters re-upped their long-running “Mutual Aid and Assistance Pact” (full of shared organizing initiatives) after Sean O’Brien took over as the Teamsters international president.
