The union for Medieval Occasions staff knowledgeable the dinner-theater firm Wednesday that it now not intends to characterize workers at two castles that organized, bringing an finish to a colourful labor marketing campaign that excited union supporters and impressed countless jokes about serfs and lords.
Employees on the chain’s castles in Northern New Jersey and Southern California each voted to type unions in 2022 with the American Guild of Selection Artists (AGVA), an affiliate of the AFL-CIO. However neither group managed to safe a collective bargaining settlement with Medieval Occasions, because it waged an aggressive counter-campaign to undermine the union effort.
AGVA declined to characterize the Medieval Occasions staff after it turned evident the union now not had the mandatory help to reach its contract battles, stated Erin Zapcic, an actor who performs the queen on the Buena Park, California, fort and was integral to the organizing effort.
“Their intention was not simply to beat us; it was to destroy us,” Zapcic stated of the corporate. “I’m sure we price this firm thousands and thousands of {dollars} [in legal costs] they usually had been keen to proceed to spend that cash to do away with us.”
Medieval Occasions representatives didn’t reply to repeated inquiries from HuffPost concerning the union marketing campaign and the corporate’s reactions to it.
The demise of the Medieval Occasions marketing campaign is a reminder that successful a union election will not be the tip of the battle, however is commonly only the start. Workers at different previously non-union corporations like Amazon, Starbucks, REI and Dealer Joe’s have not too long ago notched main election victories and now discover themselves in bruising contract battles with their employers. It typically takes years for unions to win a collective bargaining settlement.
Susanne Doris, the chief secretary-treasurer of the American Guild of Selection Artists, stated ending the marketing campaign was a painful choice. She credited union members for a “valiant” effort.
“This was not a straightforward factor to do,” Doris stated. “We’ve been preventing for greater than two years.”
When Medieval Occasions’ actors, knights and stablehands launched their union marketing campaign, they had been hoping to safe higher wages, which had been near the authorized minimums of their areas, and enhance the security tradition at their castles, saying crowd management was poor and actors had been usually subjected to harassment. The corporate operates 9 castles within the U.S. and one in Canada.
“Their intention was not simply to beat us; it was to destroy us.”
– Erin Zapcic, Medieval Occasions queen and union chief
Medieval Occasions fought the marketing campaign from the beginning.
Earlier than the election, the corporate employed an anti-union advisor to the tune of $3,200 a day to steer staff towards organizing. It later doled out raises to non-union castles whereas withholding them from the castles that unionized. It pursued, after which misplaced, a trademark infringement lawsuit towards the AGVA over the employees’ adopted identify for his or her union, Medieval Occasions Performers United. (It appealed a choose’s order tossing the case.) The corporate even succeeded in getting the union’s TikTok account banned.
“The corporate did every thing you’ll count on them to do,” stated Purnell Thompson, a former stablehand who helped lead the union effort on the New Jersey fort. “It was all textbook.”
Thompson stated a number of staff who initially supported the hassle grew impatient amid the lengthy combat.
“There are occasions after we didn’t do a ok job getting ready individuals for that,” he stated.
Employees on the California fort went on an unfair labor follow strike final February, saying the corporate was refusing to discount in good religion. The strike was meant to stress Medieval Occasions into reaching a contract. The corporate flew in alternative knights — “scabs,” in union parlance — to fill in for many who’d walked off.
Zapcic stated it was hurtful to look at so many shoppers — together with one she remembers along with his union brand tattooed on his neck — crossing their picket line every night time.
“Don’t cross a picket line,” she stated.
MediaNews Group/Orange County Register through Getty Pictures through Getty Pictures
The strike ended up lasting 9 months. The strikers returned to work swiftly in November to keep away from being completely changed and to fight an effort brewing to purge the union. Zapcic stated the brand new staff who had crossed the picket line helped diminish the ratio of union supporters contained in the fort.
Zapcic stated returning actors who’d struck had been required to do lengthy pointless rehearsals, she believes to segregate union supporters from different staff. The knights, she stated, spent a lot of their first day again shoveling manure, as in the event that they had been “day-zero squires.”
Medieval Occasions refused to reinstate a knight and union chief named Jake Bowman, accusing him of “misconduct” whereas on strike. Bowman had leveled allegations of horse abuse on the fort. The union known as his lack of reinstatement “blatant, unlawful retaliation.”
A number of staff ended up quitting not lengthy after coming back from the strike, Zapcic stated. She estimated that of the 27 strikers who returned to work, solely seven stay there now. The union argued that a number of staff had been “constructively discharged,” which means the corporate pushed them out by making their jobs disagreeable. (It’s not clear whether or not such allegations will proceed to be litigated now that the union will now not characterize the employees.)
In the meantime, the Nationwide Proper to Work Authorized Protection Basis, a conservative anti-union group, was serving to workers in each New Jersey and California submit petitions to the labor board looking for to decertify the union via new votes, in keeping with the group’s personal accounts.
“The corporate did every thing you’ll count on them to. It was all textbook.”
– Purnell Thompson, former Medieval Occasions stablehand
No such vote has come to go at Medieval Occasions, however Zapcic stated it turned clear there was now not ample union help at both location to win a contract. She stated a robust majority of staff on the New Jersey fort not too long ago signed a petition despatched to the AGVA requesting the union there be an “open store,” which means nobody can be required to pay dues.
The NLRB’s prosecutor has filed complaints accusing Medieval Occasions of breaking the legislation in a number of methods, together with by allegedly silencing the union on social media and interrogating staff at an Illinois fort about their union exercise. The board not too long ago performed a trial involving the social-media prices however a call hasn’t been issued but.
Such prices can take years to litigate, and the penalties for unlawful habits are sometimes toothless beneath the legislation. If Medieval Occasions is discovered to have pushed out union supporters, it could be ordered to supply them reinstatement years after the actual fact.
“We’ve been failed by each system we put our religion in,” Zapcic stated.
Thompson left Medieval Occasions in November, worn down by battles with the corporate and the politics of a small office. He attributed the union’s finish to a lot of components, together with the inexperience of organizers, a scarcity of assets and typically poor communication with co-workers. He understood why some wished out of the union when the marketing campaign received tougher.
“I’d do all of it once more — simply higher,” he stated.
Zapcic, who has labored at Medieval Occasions for 13 years, additionally stated she has no regrets. The nine-month strike confirmed staff at different castles that they might assert themselves with administration, she stated. And he or she believes the corporate gave non-union staff raises solely as a result of it feared the union marketing campaign would develop.
“It sucks that we don’t profit from our onerous work, however we’re leaving a legacy,” she stated. “Nobody within the 40 years of Medieval Occasions’ historical past has stood up for themselves the best way we did.”
