Ritzy cinema workers disrupt BFI London film festival with strike over living wage

Hatty Collier7 October 2016

Cinema workers brought disruption to the London film festival today with a protest on the red carpet over pay.

The Ritzy in Brixton which was due to host two festival screenings, was closed as workers went on strike.

Campaigners staged a protest outside the premiere of La La Land, a new musical featuring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, at the Odeon in Leicester Square and The Levelling, a film about the Somerset floods, at Picturehouse Central in Piccadilly.

Kelly Rogers, a bartender at the Ritzy and a representative for Bectu, which organised the strike, said: “We want the London Living Wage.

"We want sick pay for all of our staff. We want company maternity, paternity and adoption pay and we want pay rises for our supervisors and our managers.

She added: “We are doing this because we need to pay our rent, we need to put money in the bank and we need to put food on the table.”

Ritzy cinema staff protesting over the living wage stage a demonstration outside the LaLa Land premiere 
Rex Features

Ms Rodgers added that they had chosen to protest outside the premieres to show film directors and industry people that those working to show their films are on “poverty wages”.

The Bectu union called on the British Film Institute (BFI), organisers of the London film festival, to cut ties with the Ritzy’s owner, Cineworld, until it meets their demands.

Workers at the Ritzy said Picturehouse has backtracked on a promise to work towards paying staff the independently calculated London living wage of £9.40 per hour.

Staff at the Hackney Picturehouse in east London, which is also a venue for the film festival, are joining further strike action next weekend.

Ms Rodgers said cinema staff, some of whom are on zero-hours contracts, are paid £9.10 per hour and do not get company sick pay until they have worked for more than a year.

Ritzy workers staged a series of walkouts in a bid to secure the London Living Wage in 2014 but instead won a stepped 26 per cent pay rise, which was lower than they demanded.

A spokesperson for Picturehouse Cinemas said: “A three-year agreement with Bectu signed in July 2014 set staff pay rates at the Ritzy, not including benefits, at £9.10 from 2 September 2016 after three phased increases. We are therefore disappointed by the decision of a minority of staff at the Ritzy who voted for strike action on Friday 7 October.

“Our staff are hugely important to us, we pay fair wages and have a wide range of benefits within a good working environment. Increases in pay for front of house people in Picturehouse Cinemas have far outstripped inflation over the last three years.”

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