Who's Leo? Alamo Drafthouse Employees File Labor Complaints as They Wait for Union Election

In early January, employees at the Westminster and Sloan’s Lake locations of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema filed for elections with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) — but those elections have yet to occur.

In the meantime, there’s been plenty of other action, with the employees filing claims of unfair labor practices over alleged breaches of labor law by the Texas-based company, which has hired an “independent educator” that employees accuse of sowing doubt about unionization.

Westword obtained documentation of the claims through a FOIA request with the NLRB. The first, filed January 2, charges Alamo Drafthouse with terminating three employees “in an effort to discourage unionization efforts." Another claim, filed January 5, documents a manager surveilling employees at a January 2 pro-union rally.

“Additionally, the employer has required employees to participate in captive audience meetings to discourage unionization,” the claim reads. “The employer has also changed its policies regarding the dissemination and publication of non-work materials in direct response to unionization.”

According to Em Nassif, a shift leader and union organizer who has been working at the Westminster location for over two years, the company took down union-related documents from the community bulletin board in the breakroom and pulled staffers off their shifts to meet with the independent educator. It also allegedly told employees that they weren’t allowed to discuss the union on company property, the subject of a February 2 unfair labor practices claim.

The National Labor Relations Act specifies that employers can’t “prohibit employees from talking about the union during working time, if you permit them to talk about other non-work-related subjects,” according to the NLRB website.

After the newly formed Alamo Collective, which is unionizing through the Communication Workers of America, Local 7777, filed for an election at the two locations, Alamo Drafthouse updated its non-fraternization policy to specify that “managers and hourly teammates should not fraternize outside of work.” Managers may not be socially or romantically involved with anyone they could supervise, or spend time with anyone who is not also a manager, including on social media. They are also prohibited from becoming involved with anyone working at their location in a managerial or non-managerial capacity.

But employees say that their concerns are with corporate higher-ups, not immediate managers. And on February 15, the union filed another claim of unfair labor practices.

“Within the last six months, employer promulgated a Non-Fraternization Policy which unilaterally changes terms and conditions of employment for bargaining unit employees,” it argues. “Moreover, the Non-Fraternization Policy serves to interfere with, restrain and coerce employees with regards to Section 7 rights.”

Part of the National Labor Relations Act, Section 7 specifies that employees have the right to unionize and engage in union-related activity. For all of Alamo's breaches, the union argues that the NLRB should issue a Cemex bargaining order, which would require the employer to begin bargaining with the union instead of having to wait for an election.

The Littleton location is the only Alamo in the metro area that has yet to file for an election; some employees attribute that to the main employee organizer there being fired last fall because of union activity. But Jacob Kimmick, who has worked as a concierge at the location since 2021, says the Litteton employees need a union just as much as those at the other two metro Denver spots.

“It's my most fun, favorite retail job ever,” Kimmick says. “But it states in our code of conduct — and it's in front of the building — that we absolutely do not tolerate harassment from customers, especially involving sexuality, race or appearance.”

Kimmick says that when customers used gay slurs to address him, human resources was slow to respond. Employees at all three locations say that human resources has ignored complaints, including those of sexual harassment.

On a technical level, Kimmick says the front desk has just one working point-of-service system, which causes delays for customers, leading to extra stress for employees; he says Alamo Drafthouse is aware of the problem but hasn’t fixed it.

Kimmick says he also fears the independent educator’s sessions are turning employees away from something that could help them.

The independent educator’s first name is Leo; he won’t give employees a business card with his last name, though he told Nassif that it is Areyes. Asked for comment, Alamo Drafthouse headquarters deferred to the statement it had previously given Westword and ignored two requests to confirm the spelling of Leo’s name.

That statement says, in part, “Alamo Drafthouse is dedicated to the well-being and prosperity of our teammates in our goal to be the best damn cinema that has ever or will ever exist and our deeply held commitment to ensure every guest and teammate has an awesome experience and is excited to come back.”

It also notes that the company believes in providing competitive wages and benefits, and takes sexual harassment and abuse allegations seriously. The union is asking for a flat pay raise and a contractual stipulation that wages will increase based on cost of living and inflation, along with pay transparency and adding all bank holidays to the company’s holiday pay list that currently only includes Christmas and Thanksgiving. It's also looking for a percentage of the sales from tickets, food and drinks sold at each theater, and the expansion of health-care benefits to more of the staff. Plus, it wants to address the lack of breaks and issues with human-resources allegations not being taken seriously.

Leo started working in Colorado in late December, right before employees notified the company they would be filing for a union election. He splits his time between the metro area's three Alamo Drafthouse locations, offering to meet one-on-one with employees and holding general information sessions. At one company meeting (Westword viewed a video), Leo told employees he had been doing this work since 2001.

According to another unfair labor practices claim filed February 2 in part because of Leo's role, the company has “created the impression that employees’ union activities were under surveillance, made statements of futility, made implied threats that unionization would fail and employees would be left to pay fees, and interrogated employees.”

In the meeting viewed by Westword, Leo touched on all those contested topics, reminding employees that they would have to pay fees and the money would go to the CWA.

“Your union dues will pay their salary,” he told employees. “You will pay their medical benefits, their retirement. ... Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not. Organizer is a job, they gotta make money. ... However, I don't want anyone to walk around here thinking the union is the Red Cross, either.”

According to Nassif, Leo does tell employees that if they want to vote for the union, they should. But Leo often focuses on issues that could make people hesitant to unionize, he adds.

“He chooses to bring up the fact that there's no guarantee that a union contract will preserve or expand our benefits, which is baseline true,” Nassif says. “But the union contract would be drafted by a union rep from the CWA, which is our backing union, and between our stewards, which would be employee-elected stewards, and then voted on. So he's kind of showing how little faith he has in us to vote for something that would benefit all of us.”

In the meeting, Leo mentioned that there is no timeline for when the employees and the company could reach an agreement, citing a study that shows it usually takes about 465 days. He cited an Alamo Drafthouse in New York City whose employees voted to unionize last October and that hasn't yet reached a contract. Alamo Drafthouse has 44 locations; locations in Texas and California have also unionized. And Leo also warned that in the bargaining process, good stuff could get bargained away.

When an employee asked if even those who voted against the union would get the benefits of the union if a majority of people voted yes, Leo objected to the use of the word "benefits."

“Whatever is negotiated and agreed upon between the union and the company will be subjected to everyone,” he said. “I'm just taking off the word ‘benefits.’ The reason why I'm doing that is there's absolutely no guarantee that anything will improve or get the benefits or anything.”

Leo told the employees that if they unionize, they won't be able to advocate for themselves. “What that means is the union has a right to speak on your behalf, negotiate on your behalf, enter into agreements on your behalf, whether you're in agreement with it or not,” Leo said.

During the meeting, some employees pointed out that they would get to have a say in who their union representatives are, and that they would likely be fellow employees. According to Nassif, having someone advocate for them even on issues like shift changes could be helpful.

“I also feel like there's some irony when this guy who has been hired as a third party, ‘neutral, independent educator’ is saying that the union is going to be a third party getting in the way of our communication,” Nassif says. “If we win the election and everything goes well for us, I think what the union will do is force more communication between employees and management. More things will have to be spoken about.”

Despite organizers' efforts to inform their fellow employees about what they see as the benefits of unionizing, Nassif says Leo has swayed some workers who were on the fence. He's seen the impact of Leo’s work in Littleton, too, with co-workers telling him they are worried about paying dues. Still, Kimmick says he is optimistic that they will get the majority that they need for a union vote in Littleton, too.

The company may use Littleton’s hesitance to its advantage: It has taken the position that rather than having three separate votes, all the locations should vote together, weakening the strong numbers at Westminster and Sloan’s Lake, where the vast majority of employees signed union cards.

The union says it is still waiting to hear from the NLRB about whether the locations will vote together or separately, and when a vote will be scheduled.

“At face value, [Leo] and I agree that everyone should be as informed as possible,” Nassif says. “I just think that if most people are as informed as possible, they're probably going to vote pro-union, because it's going to offer us more protections and more benefits than we have right now.”