Brixton Ritzy staff in pay dispute for London Living Wage with Picturehouse Cinemas
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You need to learn to engage with people you disagree with and attempt to persuade them of the correctness of your argument!
aka
Brixton Hill
Points off for using a '!', but - you know - good job. Seven!
discobastard
Well-Known Member
Copied over from Brixton news thread where this was a reply to a previous post.
Not one single person on this thread has ever said they would ‘happily join the people laughing and drinking in the Ritzy when there’s a protest happening right next to them’. If you actually believe that then one has to call your general judgement into question. But let’s not go into that.
Nobody is ‘pushing the blame on to the workers’ – I suspect aka was using the well known rhetorical device of 'exaggerating for comic effect' – and presumably for a reason. I suspect you know that.
Here’s a scenario. For the benefit of the tape, it is not my scenario and it is not my position. But it is possibly realistic and based on a number of things I have heard from people here, people who aren’t on the boards whom I’ve told about the situation when they have mentioned the Ritzy, and also from somebody who is currently an employee of Picturehouse, and has said they are very happy in their job.
A busy person, possibly with a family, a demanding full time job maybe, might hear about the strike. They might even take the trouble to look up what the strike is all about. They might even read the Picturehouse side of the story and decide that with the living wage at £10.20, Picturehouse staff receiving between £9.40 and £9.99 an hour* with a number of other associated benefits including discounted food, free drinks and popcorn, free cinema tickets and late night working allowance, that actually, while it would be great if they got the living wage, it isn’t something that I am prepared to get up and fight because I have other concerns. They might think that they get paid better than lots of other businesses in the area with better benefits (even just any benefits), they might think that it’s zero hours and Amazon style workers that really need people to stand up for them. They might do a sponsored bike ride for people with debilitating illnesses, work in a soup kitchen or do some other form of community work. At the end of the week, when somebody suggests going to see a movie or tells everybody to meet at the Ritzy, they might think ‘yeah’, that’s just what I need’. This of course doesn't even take into account those who don't know about the strike/dispute. Somebody I know who is very kind and does a lot of work for community groups in Crystal Palace suggested we go to see a film at the Ritzy. I told her about it, but she felt that while she sympathised, boycotting it was not something she was prepared to do (we didn't go in the end btw).
They might equally say ‘let’s go and have a few lagers at the Ritzy and laugh at the workers’ (and yes, fuck those people). It seems that this is the default position for anybody who is not boycotting or even going down there to support them – or am I wrong? If so, please clarify.
It’s the unwillingness to even consider that there are so many other mediating factors why somebody doesn’t actively support the strike which does your argument harm. Because somebody is in the former category doesn’t make them ‘right wing anti-worker’. And if you continue to apparently demonise people that might be in this category, because you cannot always (possibly never) infer somebody’s beliefs from their actions, then you are distracting yourself (and others) from the real issues and from fighting real right wing idiocy. Verging on crying wolf. And please do not infer from that that I am equating the dispute with an imaginary animal, you are bright enough to work out what I mean.
And a disclaimer (again, because these tend to get ignored), before everybody piles on and tells me that these scenarios must be what I think because I typed them out, these are not all of the things that I think at all (I’ve already told you my position). But I have some thinking tools (that are freely available to all) to consider them. And as a thought experiment I am asking you to consider them rather than the apparent zero sum game of assuming everybody who doesn’t think what you think is a right wing troll.
And if the posh looking blokes in your photo that keeps getting posted up were indeed laughing at the workers, then they are indeed cunts. But one of them might have gone home and told their partner about it and they may have decided not to go to the Ritzy again. You don’t know.
*ETA: yes I am aware of this from the Picturehouse website but cannot comment on detail - it does not change the general thrust of the argument - 'Staff at The Ritzy Picturehouse London are represented by BECTU and agreed a rate of £9.10 per hour (equivalent to £9.70 with a paid break) from 2 September 2016'
Not one single person on this thread has ever said they would ‘happily join the people laughing and drinking in the Ritzy when there’s a protest happening right next to them’. If you actually believe that then one has to call your general judgement into question. But let’s not go into that.
Nobody is ‘pushing the blame on to the workers’ – I suspect aka was using the well known rhetorical device of 'exaggerating for comic effect' – and presumably for a reason. I suspect you know that.
Here’s a scenario. For the benefit of the tape, it is not my scenario and it is not my position. But it is possibly realistic and based on a number of things I have heard from people here, people who aren’t on the boards whom I’ve told about the situation when they have mentioned the Ritzy, and also from somebody who is currently an employee of Picturehouse, and has said they are very happy in their job.
A busy person, possibly with a family, a demanding full time job maybe, might hear about the strike. They might even take the trouble to look up what the strike is all about. They might even read the Picturehouse side of the story and decide that with the living wage at £10.20, Picturehouse staff receiving between £9.40 and £9.99 an hour* with a number of other associated benefits including discounted food, free drinks and popcorn, free cinema tickets and late night working allowance, that actually, while it would be great if they got the living wage, it isn’t something that I am prepared to get up and fight because I have other concerns. They might think that they get paid better than lots of other businesses in the area with better benefits (even just any benefits), they might think that it’s zero hours and Amazon style workers that really need people to stand up for them. They might do a sponsored bike ride for people with debilitating illnesses, work in a soup kitchen or do some other form of community work. At the end of the week, when somebody suggests going to see a movie or tells everybody to meet at the Ritzy, they might think ‘yeah’, that’s just what I need’. This of course doesn't even take into account those who don't know about the strike/dispute. Somebody I know who is very kind and does a lot of work for community groups in Crystal Palace suggested we go to see a film at the Ritzy. I told her about it, but she felt that while she sympathised, boycotting it was not something she was prepared to do (we didn't go in the end btw).
They might equally say ‘let’s go and have a few lagers at the Ritzy and laugh at the workers’ (and yes, fuck those people). It seems that this is the default position for anybody who is not boycotting or even going down there to support them – or am I wrong? If so, please clarify.
It’s the unwillingness to even consider that there are so many other mediating factors why somebody doesn’t actively support the strike which does your argument harm. Because somebody is in the former category doesn’t make them ‘right wing anti-worker’. And if you continue to apparently demonise people that might be in this category, because you cannot always (possibly never) infer somebody’s beliefs from their actions, then you are distracting yourself (and others) from the real issues and from fighting real right wing idiocy. Verging on crying wolf. And please do not infer from that that I am equating the dispute with an imaginary animal, you are bright enough to work out what I mean.
And a disclaimer (again, because these tend to get ignored), before everybody piles on and tells me that these scenarios must be what I think because I typed them out, these are not all of the things that I think at all (I’ve already told you my position). But I have some thinking tools (that are freely available to all) to consider them. And as a thought experiment I am asking you to consider them rather than the apparent zero sum game of assuming everybody who doesn’t think what you think is a right wing troll.
And if the posh looking blokes in your photo that keeps getting posted up were indeed laughing at the workers, then they are indeed cunts. But one of them might have gone home and told their partner about it and they may have decided not to go to the Ritzy again. You don’t know.
*ETA: yes I am aware of this from the Picturehouse website but cannot comment on detail - it does not change the general thrust of the argument - 'Staff at The Ritzy Picturehouse London are represented by BECTU and agreed a rate of £9.10 per hour (equivalent to £9.70 with a paid break) from 2 September 2016'
editor
hiraethified
Here's the post you liked. The one that blames the 'motherfucker' workers for, err, having to work.
discobastard
Well-Known Member
Yes I liked it and still do. 'Exaggerating for comic effect'. See my post. Stop using distraction.
editor
hiraethified
Who the fuck are you to say what his intention was?
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Aka really means what he says. Its not exaggeration.
discobastard
Well-Known Member
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
AKA posts up regularly. I think he means what he says. Its based on seeing the way he posts.
editor
hiraethified
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Sacked union reps to be reinstated at the Ritzy after tribunal win
So this ruling shows Picturehouse to be right wing Thatcherite employers.
The criticism here that the Ritzy strikers weren't enough like pickets of Scargill time doesn't stand up now.
Through BECTU and the legal team they have won.
So this ruling shows Picturehouse to be right wing Thatcherite employers.
The criticism here that the Ritzy strikers weren't enough like pickets of Scargill time doesn't stand up now.
Through BECTU and the legal team they have won.
editor
hiraethified
It's a great result and a humiliating defeat for Picturehouse.
editor
hiraethified
Support the Ritzy boycott
Brixton Ritzy workers ask customers, musicians and DJs to respect the ongoing boycott at the cinema
Brixton Ritzy workers ask customers, musicians and DJs to respect the ongoing boycott at the cinema
skyscraper101
0891 50 50 50
Why does Brixton Buzz still feature listings for the Ritzy? Or is Upstairs At The Ritzy a totally different thing?
editor
hiraethified
I don't do the listings on the site and I don't ever go to the cinema or the venue either.
If I get chance, I'd like to add a link to the article after each one though.
editor
hiraethified
Just to clear something up:
I got in touch with the Ritzy workers explaining that I'd decided to keep the few Ritzy gig listings on the Buzz calendar but adding "*Please note: there is currently a boycott in place for the Ritzy" along with a link to the piece published yesterday. I explained that I reckoned that by keeping the listing more people will click on it and thus find out about the boycott. They agreed and thanked me.
I got in touch with the Ritzy workers explaining that I'd decided to keep the few Ritzy gig listings on the Buzz calendar but adding "*Please note: there is currently a boycott in place for the Ritzy" along with a link to the piece published yesterday. I explained that I reckoned that by keeping the listing more people will click on it and thus find out about the boycott. They agreed and thanked me.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Interesting that the Tribunal found that "cyber picketing" is legitimate to promote by workers ( encouraging people to flood the booking system with bookings to mess up online booking. Thus damaging Picturehouse ability to to sell tickets. )
I was absolutely fine with it before the tribunal ruled tbf.
