Negotiating a Fair Collective Bargaining Agreement with the Actors and Stable Hands at Medieval Times, the American Guild of Variety Artists, and Walt Disney Studios Hollywood

We will negotiate a fair Collective Bargaining Agreement which ensures that wages are neccesarily matched with skills, improves safety protocols and enforces them, and brings about a respectful working environment by bringing the performers and stable hands at Medieval Times to the table.

Low wages, dangerous working conditions, and a lack of respect from company management incited performers to fight for more job security and join the American Guild of Variety Artists, which represents some performers at Disneyland and Universal Studios Hollywood, said Erin Zapcic, a union organizer.

Medieval Times puts on two-hour performances of jousting, sword fighting, andhand-to-hand combat as guests eat a meal. The cast includes knights, squires, stablehands who handle the horses, show cast with speaking roles, and trumpeters.

The company used the time it had to sow rifts within the bargaining unit, even though we started with a large majority of the bargaining unit, due to the way things were going.

She said that the performers petitioned for a union election on July 22 after the vote in New Jersey. The Medieval Times have several locations in North America, including Atlanta, Ga, Chicago, Il, and Toronto, Ontario.

According to the Medieval Times Performers United California, the election was delayed because Medieval Times argued that only Knights and Squires should be allowed in the union. Medieval Times argued that knights and squires do not share a “community of interest” with the show cast and stablehands.

“Medieval Times tried to separate and divide its California workers after it agreed to a single bargaining unit in New Jersey and then lost the election by a lopsided margin,” Spivak Lipton LLP attorney Nicholas Johnson said in a statement. “The Regional Director saw through the employer’s meritless arguments and correctly found that a single bargaining unit is appropriate.”

The votes at Buena Park and New Jersey castles have created a domino effect company-wide, as more castles have expressed their interest to unionize, Zapcic said.

How much should we pay a knight? A survey of New Jersey castle squires about their job and how much they should be paid

Knights perform dangerous stunts that require them to fight with real titanium weapons and throw themselves off horses at 25 mph for the performance, Zapcic said.

These dangerous duties have led to ankle, knee, and head injuries, according to performers in New Jersey, and knights do them all for about $19 to $29 an hour.

“The job will always be dangerous for the guys, but they should be compensated accordingly,” she said. There should be a connection between how dangerous their job is and how much they are paid.

Squires who make minimum wage are usually the first people who aspire to become knights or stunt performers. A knight who previously worked as a squire at the New Jersey castle made $12 an hour.

Stablehands who can make $16 an hour are more at risk of being injured when the show rely on horses and falcons.

They always tell us that we are not Broadway. Broadway has eight shows a week. We do from 16 to 21.

A 24-Hour Strike at The New York Times: The NewsGuild Reached the Times, Breaking Your Wordle, and Trying to Cut Budgets

Zapcic said, “There was a dismissiveness and feeling that the company views us as replaceable and having a union really sets us apart and shows that… we take our jobs seriously and we want to be treated with the same respect.”

A 24-hour strike at The New York Times, a historic demonstration in which more than 1,100 employees are expected to participate, began Thursday at midnight, after management and the union representing staffers failed to reach an agreement for a new contract after more than a year and a half of negotiating.

The last contract expired in March of 2021. In order to apply pressure to management to give up more concessions in negotiations, the NewsGuild notified The Times of its plans to stage a walk out.

The news organization that millions of readers rely on is in a bind because the act of protest by employees at the newspaper of record has not been staged before.

The executive at The Times, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, acknowledged to CNN that the work stopping would cause difficulties. The executive said that the paper could rely on its international staff, which is not part of the union, to fill the void in the foreseeable future.

“We’re asking readers to not engage in any [New York Times] platforms tomorrow and stand with us on the digital picket line!,” Amanda Hess, a critic-at-large for the newspaper, wrote on Twitter. “Read local news. Listen to public radio. Things can be made from a cookbook. Break your Wordle streak.

In the last few weeks, CNN laid off hundreds of people, NPR said it will need to find $10 million in savings, and other news organizations explored the need to trim budgets.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/07/media/new-york-times-strike/index.html

Why the Times union is in the middle: Is it funny to see the Times? An executive at the New York Times union lobbying for wage increases

The union has asked The Times to meet in the middle on wage increases, but the newspaper believes the union started from an extreme position, making doing so a non-starter.

They don’t meet in person, according to the executive. “It’s a really important point. I can not emphasize it enough. We are talking on the phone. There are eight or so people from management, as many as 18 people on the bargaining committee from the NewsGuild, and as many as 200 union members watching as ‘observers.’”

The executive said that the negotiations were essentially public. The whole dynamic of negotiations is changed by that. It becomes very performative and very theatrical. It is difficult to get things done. It’s like a show. And we need productive negotiations to get to a deal.”

Susan DeCarava, president of the NewsGuild of New York, said in response, “Union democracy is crucial to union power. That is why we don’t do closed-door negotiations, which management continues to demand.”

The representative said that all members should be aware of the discussions at the bargaining table. “When Times management comes to the bargaining table with their insulting and disrespectful offers, they have to explain it to a room full of their own employees—and they hate it. The strike that is happening tomorrow is the result of public actions by management.

Why Medieval Times Performers United is Striking in Southern California, says Erin Zapcic, a Lead Organizer

Workers at a Southern California Medieval Times have walked off the job and went on strike before their second performance of the day Saturday, the union confirmed.

About 25 of the 50 workers in their bargaining unit walked out at the Buena Park location, said Erin Zapcic, lead organizer of Medieval Times Performers United.

“We’ll be out picketing basically every day for the foreseeable future until we can make some kind of meaningful progress with the company,” Zapcic said, who plays the Queen in the California shows.

Zapcic said people work at Medieval Times because they love it, not for the money. Workers are performing on six days a week because of the short staffing levels.

The strike is affecting performances at the location. Zapcic said the company is pulling performers from non-unionized locations. The closest location to California is in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The union has filed numerous unfair labor practice charges against the company both in California and New Jersey, including one on their TikTok account getting banned.

“It is a grotesque attempt to retaliate against workers for exercising their legally protected right to form a union and bargain collectively,” Medieval Times Performers United and the American Guild of Variety Artists said in a statement in October.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/12/business/medieval-times-strike-california/index.html

A Complaint against Zapcic’s Facebook Account for Violation of Tik Tok’s Intellectual Property Policy on Trade Marked Products

Zapcic believes the company had reported the account to be banned for violating TikTok’s intellectual property policy. The CEO of the union filed a complaint on the union’s Facebook account for trademark violation.