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Brixton Ritzy staff in pay dispute for London Living Wage with Picturehouse Cinemas

brixton-ritzy-living-wage.jpg


The boycott is on!
http://www.brixtonbuzz.com/2014/07/...call-for-boycott-of-all-picturehouse-cinemas/
 
A fee weeks ago I was went to see a film festival screening at the hackney picture house. There were a couple of ritzy workers outside suggesting a boycott.

I got into a bit of a Barney with them. Me saying that I wanted to see the film and it wasn't on anywhere else. I can't remember what they said but I spent the next couple of hours a little confused. Should I support a boycott? Or should I just ignore these annoying people telling me what to do.

Coming out of the cinema, the whole singing troupe was assembled, banging drums, etc. The 'living wage' tune stayed in my head for the next few days.

What's my point? Well I initially thought the strikers were just there to annoy somebody else. But then the penny dropped. Oh. They're talking to me. An avid cinemagoer. I kinda gotta support this boycott.

So I will. And it'll probably be made easier by the current batch of shoddy new releases. Except 'boyhood', my film of the year, which could be very tempting for a potential strike breaker. But I saw that last week..
 
DietCokeGirl said:
Would like to offer a voucher from me shop or something, of that's any use?
Click to expand...
Anything would be good! This is what we've got so far:

2 x Tickets to the C Palace pre-season game on 29th from Dulwich Hamlet
1 x adult ticket for the Green Gathering
1 x t-shirt and latest CD from Alabama 3
4 x Brixton Buzz Beers
1 x banjo
1 x signed print Ken Loach
1 x Framed Brixton £ Bowie £10 note
1 x £10 beer and food voucher from local pub
 
t0bytoo said:
So I will. And it'll probably be made easier by the current batch of shoddy new releases. Except 'boyhood', my film of the year, which could be very tempting for a potential strike breaker. But I saw that last week..
Click to expand...

Rio cinema is worth checking out for new releases. Boyhood is on there this week.
 
mildly sympathetic article in the business section of the evening (sub) standard today - it also refers to the annual reports / accounts which have just been published

Things are Ritzy, but not for staff

Annual accounts for boutique movie chain Picturehouse Cinemas have landed at Companies House, and what a happy picture they show.

You would never have guessed that staff at its Ritzy Cinema in Brixton have gone on strike seven times, most recently yesterday, in their battle for the London Living Wage of £8.80 an hour.

The accounts say: “2013 was an excellent year.” Picturehouse’s admissions “exceeded three million for the first time and seven of its cinemas achieved record levels of admissions”. Operating profits also enjoyed “a significant increase”, rising 31% to £1.3 million as “the directors are pleased to note”.

The unnamed highest-paid director’s salary and pension jumped by £12,000 to £160,000. Admittedly, base wage fell slightly to £131,000 — but the pension contribution went up fivefold to £29,000. Picturehouse’s wage bill for 252 staff was £3.67 million, which works out at £14,554 a head against £14,515 a year earlier. That’s a rise of £39, or 75p a week.

Picturehouse pays £7.53 an hour, with an extra £1 if “customer service standards are met” but insists it “cannot build a business plan” around the London Living Wage, and has ended peace talks. Parent Cineworld made profits of £31 million last year. Now that’s Ritzy!
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I constantly remember the amount of public money poured into the Ritzy to multiplex it (and for the associated MHT social housing which justified the expense). Here is an article from "Brixton Challenger" - PR sheet for regeneration in those days.
I reckon total cost in today's money might might have been £35 million.
Funny how these things migrate into the private sector and lose touch with their roots. The "Little Bit Ritzy" was a co-op in the beginning.
BC Header.jpg Ritzy re.jpg
 
The list is slowly growing!

2 x Tickets to the C Palace pre-season game on 29th from Dulwich Hamlet
1 x adult ticket for the Green Gathering
1 x t-shirt and latest CD from Alabama 3
4 x Brixton Buzz Beers
1 x banjo
1 x signed print Ken Loach
1 x Framed Brixton £ Bowie £10 note
1 x £10 beer and food voucher from local pub
1 x £20 studio 73 voucher, redeemable against prints, cards, artwork and/or framing
 
Article in Evening Standard

Low wages and, in some cases, zero-hours contracts with no guaranteed work have been the norm for too long in the cinema industry — even though UK box-office revenues rose for 10 years in a row, hitting a record £1.1 billion in 2012, before slipping 1% last year
Click to expand...
.

Low wages and poor conditions of work are increasingly the norm across different industries.
 
More on the mass picket on Sunday from Ritzy FB

On Sunday from 4:30pm The Ritzy workers are striking for the 11th time and have chosen this time because Picturehouse Cinemas are live-streaming Monty Python Live from the O2.

For the first time the company have decided to try and keep the cinema open and strike break.

So we, The Ritzy Workers, are calling for a peaceful, noisy mass protest outside The Ritzy to show the company that they cannot simply strike-break with impunity and to help us convince as many customers as possible to support the strike, respect the picket-lines and ask for refunds.

PLEASE invite as many people as you can, we want to fill Windrush Square with noise and send a really powerful message to the company that the local community supports the workers and will not allow them to continue treating us like this.

We need people there before 6pm please.
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