Markland Mall Cinemas
On July 17, 1989, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employers Union #194 filed charges with the Indianapolis National Labor Relations Board alleging the United Artists chain of unfair labor practices and union busting. The IATSE immediately complaint on the charges that were faced to the group with failing to bargain in good faith during recent contract talks and refusing to meet with union’s rejection of UA’s last offer the previous month.
The filing follows the June 29, 1989 termination of two film projectionists at the Markland Mall Cinemas. Shown in the picture were Local 194 members Brett Blue and Harold Easterday standing in front of the doors protesting. They were informed the following day by the management that they had been permanently relieved of their duties.
Walter Wolverton, UA’s regional direction for the state of Indiana, says that the two projectionists were released pursuant permanently into a contract agreement reached between both the Union and UA. The agreement he said had extended a contract until June 29, 1989 for the two projectionists and provided each with three weeks of vacation and severance pay. Both Blue and Easterday had been working without a single contract since April 17 of that year, and Wolverton does not know why.
The IATSE filed an initial complaint with the labor relations board May 31 of that year after contracts talk in Spring of ‘89 failed to produce an agreement. That complaint alleged UA intended to severe its collective bargaining relationship with the union. Steve Weston, the Union President, said angrily that they want them out of Kokomo. The contract talks with UA negotiator and the union started that February and has since broken off. The union attempts to sit down with UA management two weeks prior on June 13 of that year and have been ignored according to the union attorney Barbara Baird. She said that they have failed to appoint another bargaining representative, and repeatedly attempted to have Blue and Easterday reinstated have also been unsuccessful.
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