Update: The employees of the two unionized Alamo Drafthouses in New York City have joined the Sloans Lake location in Colorado in striking.
Workers at the lower Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn theaters made good on the same threats Sloans Lake employees did to walk out and strike following layoffs due to seasonal slowdown. All three of the unionized theaters of the Alamo Drafthouse’s 42 nationwide theaters are now on strike.
Original story: Unionized employees at a Colorado Alamo Drafthouse made good on threats made earlier this week by walking out on strike.
The Alamo Drafthouse’s Sloans Lake location walked out after threats made to do so in protest of a number of recent “unjust” layoffs. The employees are unionized through Communications Workers of America Local 7777 and plan to stay on strike until further notice.
“This is not the Alamo Drafthouse we have supported and built over the years. This is Sony, their new corporate owner pulling the strings, attempting to silence our collective voice and strip us of our power. But we refuse to be silent, and we refuse to be powerless,” Union Bargaining Committee Member Josh Reitze said in a statement.
The statement continued by stating the Alamo Drafthouse dealt with seasonal slowdowns in previous years with fluctuating hours. The unionized employees are also placing blame on Sony for cutting coworkers at three Colorado locations despite not needing to.
“The company’s own financial data contradicts the need for these layoffs,” Claude Grossi, Union Bargaining Committee Member, added. “Their outlook is optimistic, and box office projections show significant industry growth. This is not about economic hardships it’s about corporate interests overtaking worker rights.”
Reitze told TheWrap earlier this week that news of the layoffs came as a sizable shock to the affected employees. Many of them learned their fate through media reports and on the Alamo Drafthouse Reddit page.
“I’ve worked in theaters since 2013, and the sort of layoffs Alamo is doing are fairly unprecedented,” Reitze told TheWrap. “I’ve never seen these kind of across-the-board layoffs.”
Individuals with internal knowledge at the Drafthouse said the layoffs came in anticipation of a slow box office in the first quarter of 2025. Last year March was bolstered by “Dune: Part Two” and “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” but this year is missing those early tentpoles.
Those same individuals said the Drafthouse made the choice to implement the layoffs rather than Sony. Reitze and other employees at the Sloans Lake branch remain skeptical of this since years past included cut hours in the slow months not termination.
“I can’t see it as anything other than bad one-size-fits-all, top-down decision making,” he said.
