MONTREAL, QC, October 3 – IATSE Local 262 recently reached a tentative agreement with Cineplex, removing the need for two informational pickets that had been scheduled. The local had been in negotiations with Cineplex for more than a year concerning the front-of-house staff at 8 different Montreal and Quebec City theatres, and talks had ground to a halt. Local 262 represents a total of 450 workers at these venues. Negotiations for two of the eight theatres – the Cinema St-Bruno and the Cinema Cavendish had recently gone into conciliation. The agreement that the conciliator reached with the parties for these two venues was to form the agreement for all eight Cineplex theatres.
Due to the difficulties surrounding these negotiations, the Local 262 membership had recently voted to give the negotiating committee a mandate to take whatever action it deemed necessary. With this mandate, the committee scheduled informational pickets in front of two Cineplex locations – the Cinema Brossard Dix/30 and the Quartier Latin, which is also the Cineplex regional office. All Montreal-area locals were notified and the International emailed rally notices to over 1,000 members, asking them to stand by.
Support for Local 262 was strong, and after this show of solidarity, Cineplex came back to the table with a reasonable offer for its employees. Local 262 and the employer have now reached an agreement and the two rallies have been cancelled. International President Matthew D. Loeb stated, “This is the power that working people have when they band together. We didn’t even need to have the leather hit the pavement, the employer just needed to know we were prepared to come out in force. I’d like to extend my congratulations to both negotiating teams on reaching a successful conclusion.”