Universal City AMC Workers Vote to Unionize With IATSE

Katie Kilkenny
·1 min read

Workers at the Universal Cinema AMC at CityWalk Hollywood have officially voted to unionize with IATSE.

In an election that took place March 15 and 16, 37 employees voted in favor of joining the Hollywood crew union and six voted against, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Ushers, cooks, bartenders and all other non-management employees of the theater are all part of the group that is set to join IATSE.

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“We are incredibly happy that the workers at the AMC Citywalk theater banded together to join IATSE with an 86 percent majority yes vote in the recent union election,” Universal Cinema AMC crewmembers Savannah Copeland and Maria Lubanovic said in a statement. “These past few months have shown how dedicated the crewmembers are not only to improve the workplace for themselves, but for everyone around them. It is truly inspiring to see how much they care for each other.”

THR has reached out to AMC for comment.

The Universal Cinema AMC is the second location of the theater chain to unionize with IATSE, after the AMC Dine-In South Bay Galleria 16 in Redondo Beach joined the union many years ago.

The 50-member group filed for a union election at the National Labor Relations Board in February, with the union citing wages and scheduling practices as major issues for the workers. IATSE also stated at the time that another impetus to unionize was a pay raise that had allegedly been offered to managers but not rank-and-file employees. According to IATSE, following these election results, the Universal Cinema AMC workers are already starting to prepare for negotiations.

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