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BUSINESS MOVES
Union projectionists gird for battle

BY KRISTEN LOMBARDI

In many ways, Seth Brodeur belongs to a dying profession. The movie projectionist at Fresh Pond Cinemas in Cambridge waxes nostalgic for the good old days when one person operated two projectors to run just one film at a theater. Back then, projectionists were the folks who ensured a smooth movie-viewing experience by threading the film, flipping the reels, and working the lights by hand. Today, technology has evolved; projectors have become automated. Projectionists have had to evolve, too. One person can now run as many as 20 films at once. "Obviously," Brodeur says, "there are less and less of us union projectionists around."

And if the cinema giant Loews Cineplex Entertainment gets its way, there’s sure to be even fewer of Brodeur and friends. That’s because he and 45 of his fellow union projectionists who work at five Loews-owned movie houses in and around Boston — including the highly popular Copley Place Cinemas, Harvard Square Cinemas, and Assembly Square Cinemas — have been at loggerheads with the New York company over negotiations for a new contract. The projectionists, represented by International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 182, object to the company’s proposal to cut the number of hours that they work in a projection booth by half — from the existing 120 hours that all union projectionists put in at one theater over the course of a week to just 50 hours per week — and to replace them with cinema managers. The move is sure to eliminate projectionist jobs at all five theaters. Explains Brodeur, who sits on the IATSE Local 182 bargaining team, "Loews wants to make managers hit a button and then go downstairs to sell popcorn. But that would put us out of work."

Loews spokesperson Mindy Tucker did not return a phone call seeking comment. The company has maintained throughout contract negotiations that its proposal is nothing but a cost-saving measure — a measure that’s needed now more than ever. Last February, Loews filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy status and has since liquidated many of its theaters in Canada and across the country, including the Cheri Cinemas in Boston.

It’s not as if the projectionists don’t have sympathy for the company’s financial difficulties in these difficult economic times. They are, after all, not asking for a pay raise or even improved benefits. Rather, they’re proposing a two-year freeze on hourly wages that range from $11 to $18.50. All the projectionists really want is to keep their projection-booth hours. That Loews won’t accept such a modest demand has raised more than a few eyebrows. As Ira Sills, a Boston attorney who represents the projectionists, describes it: "The labor costs are such a tiny percentage of the company’s overhead. Yet Loews seems to have an ideological anti-union antagonism towards its workers."

Indeed. This past fall, IATSE Local 182 went so far as to file an unfair labor practices charge against Loews with the National Labor Relations Board. The trouble ensued after projectionists at the Liberty Tree Mall Cinemas in Danvers tried to join the union. Loews responded by converting the projectionists to supervisors — thus making them "managers" who cannot legally unionize. The NLRB subsequently found that Loews had committed 21 separate violations of federal labor laws.

No doubt, the company’s hostile bargaining history doesn’t bode well for Boston projectionists. Neither does the news last October that Loews has asked the US Bankruptcy Court in New York to approve an offer to pay 78 of its senior executives one-time bonuses totaling $4.4 million. Still, the projectionists are readying themselves for another negotiation session on December 20 — this time, they’ve called in a federal mediator to help. And they’re holding out hope that Loews will realize that projectionists may belong to a shrinking profession, but it isn’t expendable. Concludes Brodeur, "We know the machines inside and out. We know how to make movies a smoothly run experience."

 

Issue Date: December 13 - 20, 2001

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