Support the Picturehouse Strikes!

Picturehouse workers are going to take strike action for over two weeks at the end of January. This is part of their campaign for the Living Wage, and also to get four colleagues re-instated who were sacked by Picturehouse for campaigning for the Living Wage. All four were trade union reps. Cineworld, who owns Picturehouse, made over £90 million profit last year, pays their Chief Executive £2.5 million a year and their directors over £1 million a year. Yet they continue to pay their workers poverty wages, and employ them with bad terms and conditions.

Picturehouse has responded to the strike by saying they will lock workers out of the Ritzy, even on days where there aren’t any strikes, to try and break the strike by denying them any wages at all. Previously they wrote to all the workers to say they would sack any workers taking strike action.

Lambeth UNISON has been a key organisation in supporting the Community Pickets outside the Ritzy cinema over the past nine months. This motion asks the AGM to support the workers in their two week strike and the strike fund that needs to raise £20,000 so workers on poverty wages can continue their strike.

The AGM resolves to:

• Contribute £750 to the strike fund.
• Continue Lambeth UNISON’s support of the Community Pickets.
• Support demonstrations and pickets by the Picturehouse workers during the two week strike.
• Support direct action taken by the community campaign to assist the striking workers.