The National Labor Relations Board won’t schedule another date for the Bow Tie Squire Cinema theater workers to vote on unionization until after the agency investigates whether the company attempted to stop the vote, an NLRB official said Monday.
Jim Paulson, regional director of the NLRB’s Brooklyn Regional Office, said the NLRB postponed an April 10 unionization vote after the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500 — the union the Squire employees are looking to be represented by — filed Unfair Labor Practices charges with the NLRB against Bow Tie Cinemas, alleging that the company asked workers if they supported a possible union, told workers they may be fired if the voted in favor of unionizing, told workers the theater would close if the union vote passed and promised to give benefits to workers if they gave up their support for the union.
“If we find there is no merit to the case, we will schedule an election,” Paulson said. “If we found merit, then we would try to work out a settlement, in which we would try to resolve the issues being raised by the charge.”
Paulson said the investigation should be over sometime in May, and that if the NLRB finds Bow Tie did threaten employees, the company can challenge the finding and contest it in court.
If the NLRB found that Bow Tie Cinemas did try to dissuade a union vote, the company would have to post a notice saying they would not threaten employees anymore. After they posted the notice, the NLRB would then schedule a vote, he said.
“Usually in a union drive, when a law is being broken so severely, you really have to consider how it impacts workers,” said Aly Waddy, director of Organizing for the UFCW union Local 1500. “The government looks at things closely to see the how the way the law being broken will influence the way workers are interpreting what is going on.”
Waddy said she does not know when a new date will be scheduled. The NLRB schedules union votes, she said, not the union.
The union announced last week that workers at the Bow Tie Squire Cinema in Great Neck were trying to unionize, citing poor working conditions and low wages.
After learning of the organizing efforts of Great Neck employees company officials organized monthly mandatory meetings with employees trying to persuade them not to unionize, Great Neck Squire Cinema employee Samantha Valente said.
Bow Tie Cinemas is a national chain of movie theaters with locations in six states — 16 of which are located in New York, including New Hyde Park, Manhasset and Roslyn.
But union officials said the organizing efforts were so far limited to Great Neck.
Philip Mortensen, an attorney for Bow Tie, said his client does not wish to comment on the case at this time.
Waddy said even when a company asks its employees if they support unionization, it send a “chill” into the air.
“The [Squire] workers are scared,” Waddy said. “Some of them were so scared we had to pull the election because the government said it wouldn’t be a fit environment to vote in.”
That, she said, is why the union filed an Unfair Labor Practices charge with the NLRB against Bow Tie Cinemas in February.
“[The government has] taken testimony from several workers,” Waddy said. “Many workers have confirmed to us that the company has outright asked them if they were looking to join a union.”
She said that when companies find out their workers are trying to unionize, they will typically hire attorneys who will advise the company not the intimidate workers out of unionizing.
“It’s as illegal as it gets,” Waddy said.
The UFCW Union, which is part of the AFL-CIO, represents about 1.3 million workers who primarily work in grocery and retail stores, food processing and meat packing, according to their website.
In her experience, Waddy said, companies try to avoid employees unionizing because they don’t like employees to have contracts that restrict management’s prerogatives.
“A lot of times people think a company doesn’t want unions for economic reasons, which is a huge reason, but they also wouldn’t want anyone telling what they want to do,” Waddy said. “Right now, the company is free to do what want — they can hire and fire anyone they want.”
Most movie theater are not unionized, Waddy said, because of relatively high employee turnover. The unionization of the Squire, she said, could pave the road for other theater workers to unionize.
Valente said employees are unhappy with their low wages, lack of raises and erratic scheduling, sometimes finding out when they work the day before they have a shift.
She has said the scheduling makes it difficult for part-time workers, like her, to find other jobs. She also said employees worked throughout the holidays without holiday pay.
