Workers at Alamo Drafthouse in Woodbury (photo courtesy CWA Local 7250)
The time it takes to organize a union is typically measured in months, if not years. Not so for workers at the Alamo Drafthouse in Woodbury, who voted March 27 to join Communications Workers (CWA) Local 7250 in a process that took a mere six weeks.
It was as quick an organizing drive as anyone at CWA could remember and, according to workers, an indication of just how miserable a new digital ordering system has made the Alamo Drafthouse experience for both employees and moviegoers.
“It really eliminates the guest-to-server interaction – the community that comes with being part of the Alamo,” support crew member Isabelle Hernandez, 22, said. “The team, the movies and even our regulars really make the Alamo as special as it is, and we don’t want to lose that.”
Alamo Drafthouse operates 40 cinemas across the U.S. that provide moviegoers with the big-screen experience in a bar-and-grill setting.
The corporation has been gradually introducing a new business model at its locations over the last year, replacing servers who take tableside food and drink orders with a mobile app.
That change came to the Woodbury location, which employs about 60 people, on March 3.
For workers, it’s meant reduced hours, with no guarantee of even one shift per week. And for former servers like Hernandez and Max Chitwood, who previously earned tips, it’s meant a pay cut. Instead of taking hushed orders in the theater – and earning tips from customers – they now run food and drinks from the kitchen to the tables and clean theaters between screenings.
Chitwood’s hourly wage increased from $13 to $22 per hour after the change, but she said it’s not enough to cover the loss of her tips.
“For a lot of the former servers, it’s cut our paychecks in half, at least,” Hernandez said.
Guests have noticed the change too. Phone use, previously forbidden, is now encouraged by a QR code at each table.
“Alamo’s big thing has always been no talking and no texting,” Hernandez said. “They play that before every single movie. It’s just not the Alamo that we used to know and love. There are so many times now that I’ve caught people on their phones who weren’t ordering food.”
Hernandez isn’t alone. An IndieWire review last week blasted the changes: “Once America’s most promising movie theater chain, the Alamo Drafthouse has become a QR-coded symbol of corporate ens***tification.”
Aware that other Alamo Drafthouse locations had organized unions with CWA, Woodbury workers reached out to Local 7250 in February after getting “offer sheets” from management outlining their new terms of employment.
Within 24 hours of obtaining authorization cards from the local, half of eligible workers at the theater had signed one. Within nine days, they had petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for a union election, with support from a supermajority of 72%.
“They told us we set a CWA record for fastest total time between taking the first steps toward unionizing to filing,” Chitwood, 24, said.
Alamo Drafthouse tried to pump the brakes on workers’ momentum in the month between filing their petition and voting.
The corporate office sent a representative to Minnesota to “watch us and talk to us about why the union wasn’t a good idea,” Hernandez said. And local managers attempted one-on-one communications with staff members to persuade them to vote against the union.
Both efforts, workers alleged, crossed the line between appropriate and inappropriate behavior. The corporate representative was recalled, and two workers quit over private messages from local managers that made them uncomfortable.
“It was nothing explicitly bad or outright aggressive, just very passive-aggressive, and it made the work environment uncomfortable or unsafe for those workers who left,” Hernandez said. “They were both really good team members, and we miss them.”
Ultimately, workers voted 33-14 in favor of forming a union, with one challenged ballot.
When negotiations on a first contract begin, union members hope to address wages, staffing and, of course, the new business model. Hernandez said other bargaining units have pushed for a hybrid ordering system that offers guests a choice between the QR code and in-person service.
Chitwood said the goal is to improve the Alamo Drafthouse experience for everyone, adding that many moviegoers who have learned about the union drive have responded with “a resounding hell yes, good luck in bargaining.”
“It’s reflective of how united we are as a team and how much we care about our co-workers and even the company itself,” Hernandez added.
– Michael Moore, UA editor
Union Advocate 
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