Nitehawk Cinema Workers Take Steps To Unionize In Brooklyn

PARK SLOPE, NY — A union push at Brooklyn's beloved Nitehawk Cinema has an unlikely inspiration: Barbenheimer.

The same-day releases of Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" and Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" not only rocked cinema screens nationwide but also showed employees at the independent dine-in theater in Park Slope the need to unionize, workers said.

More than 20 employees took their atomic and candy-colored concerns about unfair labor practices, along with health and safety concerns, in a formal letter Tuesday to the theater's management.

The next day, more than 100 employees, including full-time and part-time waitstaff, bartenders, line workers and servers, made a move to petition the National Labor Relations Board for official certification, workers told Patch.

"I expressed concerns that our department's outstanding performance during Barbenheimer would indicate to management that the conditions we experienced were an acceptable standard and was met with the opposite sentiment that we were 'owed a stronger team.' The team did great. Management did not," Nitehawk lead runner Ben Sepinuck said.

"We tried to go through the avenues they afforded to us—we spoke up at meetings, attended one-on-ones, spammed the supposedly anonymous virtual suggestion box—and were routinely ignored. Organizing was the only way to make our voices heard," Nitehawk server Alana Liu Moskowitz said.

Employees said they are "dangerously overworked," especially during special events and particularly busy times—like during holiday weekends.

One employee told Patch that management often ignores scheduled time off and weekly availability when creating their schedules.

In their letter to upper management, workers asserted that the Nitehawk building, nearly a century old, is in many ways stuck in the past, not safe by any modern standard for employees or guests.

"Improvements to hazardous conditions take months, and many concerns are never addressed at all. In addition to physical facility issues, current security protocols prioritize the protection of property over the safety and well-being of workers," Nitehawk workers said in a statement.

Nitehawk was founded in Williamsburg in 2011 and opened its Prospect Park location in 2018.

The theater, located at 188 Prospect Park West, originally opened in 1928 as The Sanders Theatre with 1,581 seats and a single screen, according to the company’s website.

In 1996, the building was refurbished and reopened as the Pavilion Theatre.

After closing in 2016, the Pavilion underwent a two-year restoration before reopening in December 2018 as Nitehawk Prospect Park, which features seven screens, 650 seats, in-theater table service and two bars.

A representative from the union said Wednesday that management declined to voluntarily recognize their union.

"We want our concerns heard, recognized, and resolved promptly, with more respect than we’ve received in the past. We will accept neither deliberately vague and inconsistent communication nor targeted attacks against individual workers for speaking up. So far, there has been little to no accountability in regards to multiple counts of harassment and abuse of power in the workplace," Nitehawk workers said in a statement.