Nitehawk Cinema Workers Rally for First Contract

Since unionizing in 2024, employees at Nitehawk Cinema’s Prospect Park branch have been bargaining for a first contract that would increase worker safety conditions, hourly pay and healthcare benefits; concerns which have yet to be met by management.

On March 13, Nitehawk workers and allies employees gathered in front of the theater’s Prospect Park location to demand attention to the contract, which workers argue has been at a standstill for almost two years due to stalling and bad faith negotiating on part of the owners.

“They do the legal bare minimum,” argued Lydia DeKok, a Nitehawk bartender and one of the original union organizers who began working at the independent cinema chain in 2024. “Some of the biggest things that we’ve been asking for since the beginning are substantial hourly raises for everyone in the building. Our boss's reaction to that was that we were trying to bankrupt him.”

Nitehawk Prospect Park is represented by Local 2179 of the United Auto Workers, which also represents workers at Alamo Drafthouse and Cinema Village, local cinemas that have been part of the surge in unionizing over similar workplace concerns in local movie theaters within the past couple of years. Read more in The Chief-Leader!