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

Had a response from Picture Houses. They say they can't give me a refund as I've used all my free tickets.... good excuse. I've stopped my standing order though.

Have a look at the GREAT list of benefits you can get if you work for them - all adding up to a big fat nothing in your wallet.

Thank you for contacting the Picturehouse Cinemas Ltd. Picturehouse have released the following statement regarding the industrial disputes:

"We are proud of our employees and the good relationship we have with them at all Picturehouse cinemas around the country.

For many years Picturehouse Cinemas has paid its front-of-house customer service staff well above minimum wage. Our pay rates are amongst the highest in the industry and have enabled us to attract and retain staff who are knowledgeable about film, skilled in many areas and able to offer high levels of service.

Staff at the Hackney, Crouch End and Central Picturehouses in London are represented by The Forum, a recognised union, with collective bargaining rights for all Picturehouse cinemas excluding the Ritzy Picturehouse in Brixton, South London. We negotiate pay rates each year and a new pay rate for 2016-2017 of £9.05 per hour - plus individual and cinema-wide shared bonus schemes - has just been agreed by a 72% majority vote. We are therefore disappointed by the decision of a minority of staff who have chosen to strike.

In addition, all our employees receive the following:

Paid breaks: breaks are 20 minutes for every 6 hours worked. At Picturehouse we try to give 5 minutes for every hour up to 30 minutes in an 8 hour shift, making the pay rate the equivalent of £9.61 per hour.

Unlimited free cinema tickets at Picturehouse: provided there are seats available at the last minute.

Free soft drinks and popcorn: when visiting the cinema to watch a film.

Two guest tickets a week: once a week staff can bring two guests to any film or event for free, subject to availability.

Unlimited free tickets at Cineworld (our parent company): subject to availability.

Free hot and cold drinks: when staff are working they can have as much tea, coffee, hot chocolate or draught soft drinks as they like.

Food & drink discounts: staff get 30% discount at Picturehouses at all times.

Free eye tests: for those using computers or tills.

Statutory sick pay and four weeks paid holiday.

Staff at the Ritzy, represented by BECTU, are on a flat rate of £9.10 per hour from 2nd September 2016. This rate was agreed by majority vote in a ballot held following considerable negotiation in July 2014."

Having checked our membership account, it would appear that you have used all your free tickets against your membership which accounts for the sum you paid for your term. Therefore, we are unable to process any form of refund on your membership.

However, it is worth pointing out that you do have a Direct Debit against your membership. Therefore, should you no longer wish to renew automatically as a member of the Picturehouse, I would suggest contacting your bank in order to cancel any future payments relating to this agreement.

I hope this information has been helpful in clarifying the pay and benefits to Picturehouse staff.

Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Kindest regards,

Matthew
Customer Service Team
Picturehouse Cinemas Ltd.
 
Good piece here :

It is a saga that tells us much about a country rigged in favour of unscrupulous employers, and a society riddled with injustice. The Ritzy cinema in Brixton, south London, is a hub for the young, the trendy, the progressively minded. Here you can watch rousing films with storylines about confronting oppression and injustice, while you are served by workers on poverty wages being persecuted by their own employers. Picturehouse – the owner of the Ritzy – should be shamed, but it tells a broader story of a wealthy nation in which the majority of those below the poverty line are in work, of a law that allows bosses to behave with impunity while denying workers a wage on which they can live, and of a lack of security and rights. It seemed reasonable to hope that this week’s long-awaited Taylor review into modern employment practices might have begun to address this crisis. Some hope.

But then the Ritzy cinema workers have long ceased relying on hope. They have been fighting for years now for a living wage, despite entrenched opposition from their employers. One day it will be a source of bewilderment, perhaps disgust, that any worker could earn their poverty wages. Those who fought such a scandal will be regarded as pioneers; Picturehouse owners should realise that history will be less kind to them, that they will be remembered as case studies of exploitation and nothing else.

This is not some plucky struggling arthouse firm: Picturehouse is owned by the corporate titan Cineworld. After a protracted campaign by workers that won broad local support, in 2014 Picturehouse appeared to buckle, offering workers the London living wage, which at that time was £8.80 an hour. But it turned out the increase in wages would be paid for by sacking up to a third of the workforce. The outrage – including calls for a boycott – forced Picturehouse into retreat.

Other cinema chains – the Curzon among them – have committed to increasing their workers’ pay in line with the increased London living wage, now at £9.75 an hour. Britain’s capital, after all, is one of the world’s most expensive cities and the centre of the country’s housing crisis, and low pay here is particularly incompatible with a decent standard of living. But Picturehouse has refused, despite its multimillion profits, forcing its workers to resume industrial action. A ballot for strike action earlier this year received almost unanimous support on a 75% turnout, with workers walking out of multiple cinemas. The response from bosses was to threaten legal action over claims of intimidation and illegal pickets.
Click to expand...

Now showing at the Ritzy: low pay and exploitation | Owen Jones
 
Clever:

Certainly, workers have felt intimidated. “They’ve been incredibly belligerent from the beginning, refused to negotiate, brought in lots of lawyers, issued legal threats,” one tells me. In solidarity with the Ritzy workers, supportive members of the public block-booked cinema tickets. They didn’t pay for them: they were merely in their online baskets, preventing others from booking tickets. Here was an effective, ingenious even, means of solidarity.
Click to expand...
 
editor said:
Good piece here :



Now showing at the Ritzy: low pay and exploitation | Owen Jones
Click to expand...


For Agata – who is from Poland – there is another bitter side to the dispute. It has become all too common for migrants like her to be scapegoated for social ills caused by others. Here she is, a Polish worker fighting for a decent wage for her and her fellow workers, in a country where it has become fashionable to blame migrants for suppressing wages. “Why don’t you blame the employer?” she implores. “It’s got especially worse in the Brexit climate: all this trying to find blame in the wrong places.”
Click to expand...

As I have Polish friends and a partner from another EU country I feel the referendum ended up as poisonous debate about immigration.

That's not to say the EU is all good. The single market is neo liberal. Providing business with access to cheaper labour force. Why Chukas amendment to stay in single market is not progressive. ( I heard Chukas on radio. He wants to stay in single market. But he was all for deporting EU people who were unemployed for three months. Not exactly liberal minded.)

The EU and the way it's set up and operates is partly to blame for this not just employers.

Poles I know who came here when borders were opened did so as they felt this country was more liberal minded that there's. This country had a good reputation for younger Poles. Poland was and is now run by Catholic Nationalists. More socially conservative than our Tories. More like the DUP. They feel now let down. This was a country they liked. They can't understand what's happened.

For Poles this country had a long history of connection with Poland. They knew this. A lot of people in this country are ignorant of it. From famous Poles like Conrad to the many Poles who fought in the British army and air force against the Nazis in WW2. We have let them down more than once.
 
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Saw one of the Ritzy sacked workers at a union / labour meeting last week. Found out lots about the strike and the strikers I didn't know.

Although Cineworld made a commitment after the stikes a way back to work towards that - they have stopped 70p an hr short and now just refuse.

They really want people to continue to boycott the Ritzy. Someone said there was a group of local people (not employees) meeting outside the Ritzy evernight, early evening for a hour or two, to tell people about the boycott.

Also found out that Lambeth Council are about to invest £3.5 million doing up Norwood library to then give it rent free for 5 years to Cineworld, where they would be under no obligation to pay LLW. Why are our local council subsidising an explotative profitable big business - it would be cheaper to simply run a library. If this concerns you - pls write to your Lambeth councillor.
 
I just phoned to check my membership wasn't on automatic renewal. (I renewed it when it briefly looked like things had been sorted out and they gave me some free months for setting up a direct debit. I haven't been to any of their cinemas in a very long time.)

I also asked for an email address to write to to explain why I wasn't renewing.

The woman on the phone told me she worked at the Ritzy, was aware of what was going on and was very happy with her pay.

I'm sure she'll be very happy to accept any payrise won by her colleagues putting themselves on the line too. :rolleyes:
 
Some lovely community support here:

ritzy-strike-aug-2017-01.jpg


ritzy-strike-aug-2017-02.jpg


Striking Brixton Ritzy workers get musical support from local grime artists in Windrush Square – photos
 
I'm going to ask a totally stupid question, so please be gentle. I agree with, and support what's happening with the workers at the Rizty (as in, I support the workers), and haven't been there for ages. What's the situation with Clapham Picture House and East Dulwich regarding pay rates? Should I also not visit those cinemas, as well as not going to Cineworld?
 
ChrisSouth said:
I'm going to ask a totally stupid question, so please be gentle. I agree with, and support what's happening with the workers at the Rizty (as in, I support the workers), and haven't been there for ages. What's the situation with Clapham Picture House and East Dulwich regarding pay rates? Should I also not visit those cinemas, as well as not going to Cineworld?
Click to expand...
I don't think their position has changed since this was posted: Boycott called for all Picturehouse and Cineworld Cinemas including the Brixton Ritzy
 
ChrisSouth said:
I'm going to ask a totally stupid question, so please be gentle. I agree with, and support what's happening with the workers at the Rizty (as in, I support the workers), and haven't been there for ages. What's the situation with Clapham Picture House and East Dulwich regarding pay rates? Should I also not visit those cinemas, as well as not going to Cineworld?
Click to expand...

The Ritzy workers have been represented by BECTU for years. It might have pre dated Cineworld acquiring the Ritzy. BECTU officially represent Ritzy workers.

This isn't the case with other cinemas. At Picture House central not all the workers are in the union. Each cinema union representation is done separately despite them being owned by one company.
 
they must have a high turn over of staff? I dont recognise any of them. Haven't been in there for a while, mind.
 
I think they are supporters, not employees???

Was interesting to see people sitting outside the Ritzy drinking and enjoying the sun while these guys were stood there with their banners.

I wouldn't be able to sit there and crack a bottle of Champagne, as I saw one couple doing, while there's a pay dispute going on and a demo is taking place beside me as I sip at my bubbly.
 
they are employees (the ones in red t-shirt). the last time I recognised a few of them was when eric cantona turned up.
 
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