East Dulwich Picturehouse and Caf?

[bawdy-nan]

couldn't post the link but there's a very good account on the Brixton blog

[hpsaucey]

This one?

http://www.brixtonbuzz.com/2014/10/picturehouse-prepare-to-axe-a-quarter-of-all-brixton-ritzy-staff/

[worldwiser]

Wow, what an extremely unbiased, balanced piece of journalism. Why are people under the delusion that Picturehouse is some kind of workers co-op? It's a commercial enterprise and the people running it in an extremely competitive marketplace. They can and should run it the way they need to to keep the business viable. Emotionally charged articles masquerading as truth and offering but a single viewpoint do nobody any favours. People get moved around, reassigned or let go in thousands of businesses every day of the week. Why pick on Picturehouse?

[bawdy-nan]

because they negotiated in good faith via acas and have reneged on that agreement?

[worldwiser]

And whose viewpoint is all but unexpressed anywhere in the article referred to. You're basing your opinion on a highly partisan and unverified document clearly written by disgruntled employees with an axe to grind. I'm not prepared to vilify a company based on such limited and one-sided information and neither should anyone else.

[LondonMix]

I tend to agree with Worldwiser on this one.

[david_carnell]

You think the document is a fake? That they aren't preparing to make redundancies?

[Penguin68]

There are quite strict rules regarding redundancies (partly at least because of the tax free element of redundancy payments up to a ceiling), and trade's unions are normally very clear about them - to remove as many activists as is being suggested without real redundancy conditions being met does not make sense to me. You can either reduce the whole workforce through redundancy - or remove particular classes of employee (for instance those whose skill set is no longer required) - but you cannot remove people claiming redundancy and then back-fill vacancies. Any business can determine that it is necessary to reduce its workforce; that is of course very sad for the employees concerned, but it's business.

It would not be possible to set 'legal' criteria for redundancy as being trade's union membership or activity - this must be based on clear (non-discriminatory) criteria (which can however include performance measures). LIFO (last In First Out) and FIFO (First In, First Out) have both also been used by companies. Most will look for voluntary before compulsory redundancy, and many will allow people to apply for jobs elsewhere in the organisation, should there be any and they be qualified.

At the moment the company appears to be going through standard procedures (including consultancy).

From what has been written, it appears that they plan to re-organise the Ritzy - probably to reduce staff overheads - and in putting virtually all the jobs at risk, they plan to re-staff the new organisation from within the exiting pay-roll.

A cynic might suggest that since the Ritzy did continue to stay open and deliver service during the strike, the management may have decided that they can still run the cinema with fewer permanent staff, since they didn't appear to need the numbers actually on-strike at the time (numbers, not people).

Edited to say:- I have been a committed trade unionist for most of my (long) working life and am still a (reasonably) active member of my Branch Committee - in case it is assumed I am writing from a different bias.

[worldwiser]

Where did I say the document is fake? I said the document only represents half the story and that's not enough for me to form a complete opinion worth expressing on a public forum.

[StraferJack]

"unverified document" doesn't suggest faith in it's autheticity

[Beej]

Flaming hell, just give me a cinema! I'll pay more if I have to.

[LondonMix]

My point was really that it didn't feel like we were getting the full picture.

[bawdy-nan]

well here's an account with a response from ph - http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/staff-face-sack-after-picturehouse-cinemas-agree-to-pay-ritzy-workers-london-living-wage-9819909.html

[Jeremy]

TBH I find it hard to muster much sympathy for the Ritzy strikes. I guess I find it hard to empathise.. if I wasn't happy with my job, I'd go and find a new one. We're not talking about people with highly specific skillsets, or performing vital services.

[StraferJack]

this is the crux of modern living tho isn't it Jeremy - YOU might be able to go get another job but if everyone did that there would be nobody doing the jobs we rely on. And by rely I mean lifestyle rather than public service jobs

You either believe a large swathe of the population needs to be on low wages to subsidise your life choices, or you belive that everyone is entitled to a decent wage

What you can't have is some utopian market led idea that everyone will just gravitate to the job they want, on the money they want and everyone's a winner

Our society demands large numbers of people do relatively unskilled jobs - I don't see why that should condemn them to substandard wages

The London Living Wage is, objectively, not an unreasonable idea. So why some people/companies fight it so spitefully I don't understand

[Jeremy]

On an idealogical level, yes I agree that the LWW is not unreasonable.

But on a more individual level... I suspect (although of course I have no evidence) that we're talking about mainly fairly young people who have made a conscious choice to live what they perceive to be a bohemian lifestyle. Young, personable people who could have all sorts of options ahead of them if they wanted.

[worldwiser]

How many times have we been over this. If minimum pay increased to the LLW tomorrow across London, the economic impact would be cataclysmic. Also, why does someone living and working in zone 6 deserve as much as a commuter into zone 1? Do you deny someone living just outside the M25 the LLW while someone in the next street qualifies? The overwhelming majority of companies in London don't operate the LLW. Fact. If Picturehouse deserve a kicking then where's Odeon or Vue who are far larger entities and with whom Picturehouse do and must compete? And indeed 99% of the other businesses we all interact with on a daily basis? This cinema chain is not deserving of the special vilification it's receiving. It's only because of BECTU and their ability to marshall well-known types into the fray that we even heard about it at all. I say leave them alone. And I look forward to the ED branch opening with great anticipation.

[StraferJack]

whataboutery/10

[StraferJack]

cataclysmic

That's mighty big word isn't it?

I'm sure I've heard it before

Now, when was that..

[DaveR]

This the quote from Picture House:

?The staff at The Ritzy recently agreed a pay package with Picturehouse Cinemas, which includes substantial pay increases across four years.

?During the negotiation process it was discussed that the amount of income available to distribute to staff would not be increasing, and that the consequence of such levels of increase to pay rates would be fewer people with more highly paid jobs.?

If true, then it appears that the union shot themselves in the foot somewhat. I wonder whether this information was disseminated to all the staff?

FWIW, I am generally in favour of increasing minimum wage levels in London, not least because low pay means subsidies from taxes going to private landlords - a classic perverse outcome. But you have to allow for the fact that increased pay in some circumstances will mean fewer jobs.

[StraferJack]

"?During the negotiation process it was discussed that the amount of income available to distribute to staff would not be increasing"

discussed doesn't mean agreed tho

and why exactly would the amount of income available to distribute to staff NOT be increasing - as a blanket statement that seems very final

[Penguin68]

discussed doesn't mean agreed tho

Unions have no rights, or expectations, to 'agree' to management decisions about resource allocation - more true would be to say that the unions may not have believed this management statement, and determined to press for more pay in the hope (or perhaps even expectation) that this was a bluff. Clearly it wasn't.

In fact, as I have said, the fact that the Ritzy continued to operate when (some) of its staff were on strike may have helped convice management that they could operate at lower stafing levels.

Throughout the management does appear to have acted honestly (they said they wouldn't change their overall pay envelope, they haven't) - which is not to say nicely - and are following standard (and legal) procedures about redundancy.

As a trade's unionist I might conclude that the principle of the LLW has been won, but at the cost of the jobs of some of my members. The principle may be more important, long term, than the jobs (but then, if I was a BECTU official, I will still be working, but some of my members won't be!). Maybe the long-run hope is that the Ritzy can't actually operate with a reduced staff, and that, in the longer term, they may have to re-hire (and they are hiring for ED anyway). A 'better' negotiation might have been to allow for the Ritzy reduction - but to negotiate for transfer of some staff to ED - but this might not have been welcomed - the strike was quite bitter and there was actual violence I am told between strikers and those not striking - the police were called (I believe) to the Monty Python live broadcast to eject strikers who were disrupting the show.

[MissKing]

Do all the other businesses along Lordship Lane pay this LLW? If not, why all the focus on just the cinema?

[StraferJack]

question has been asked a dozen times

1 - because the staff did something about it and deserve support

2 - because they have media attention, the case could be useful for other employees going forward - the more business introduce LLW the more pressure to introduce it elsewhere rises

3 - not many of the other businesses on LL are global affairs with income in hundreds of millions and profits measured in tens of millions

[titch juicy]

MissKing Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Do all the other businesses along Lordship Lane

> pay this LLW? If not, why all the focus on just

> the cinema?

because it's been brought into focus by the staff at the ritzy

they should all pay it of course