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Alamo Drafthouse workers in New York City ended their 58-day strike after reaching an agreement with the management of the dine-in cinema chain.
Employees at the lower Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn locations announced their union had successfully struck a deal in which all laid-off staffers will be rehired. The union went on strike in mid-February after months of bargaining with management over key issues like scheduling, wages and safety concerns. The agreement, which was ratified on Sunday, will reinstate the roughly 70 workers who were let go. It will also restore those employees’ previously accrued paid time off, sick days, seniority and hire date, the union said. Struck staffers will resume work on Friday.
“Strike won! All jobs are back!” the union announced on Instagram. “We will be returning to work officially on April 18 but feel free to start patronizing the Alamos in [Brooklyn] and Manhattan as soon as today.”
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Alamo Drafthouse workers in lower Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn are organized with United Auto Workers Local 2179. (Alamo operates a third New York City venue in Staten Island, which isn’t unionized.) Employees went on strike on Feb. 14 after accusing the theater chain of not bargaining “in good faith.”
Alamo Drafthouse has declined to comment on the strikes, but sources at the time said those layoffs were part of the seasonal slowdown at the multiplexes. Cinema chains typically staff up around the Christmastime holidays and then shed the extra workforce after attendance stalls in the early winter months of the new year. The circuit also let go of an unspecified number of venue staff across the country’s 44 locations in January, as well as 15 corporate employees, for the same reason.
Earlier this month, Alamo Drafthouse reportedly emailed the laid off staff members across all affected venues — not just those in New York — to notify them that the rehiring process was expected to commence in the spring when the box office was expected to regain steam. Sources close to the discussions say these intentions were communicated in January before the strike began.
The box office has been glacial in 2025, though “A Minecraft Movie” has been a huge boon for the country’s movie theater operators. Two weekends ago, domestic revenues were nearly 11% behind last year and 40% behind 2019, according to Comscore. Now the gap has shrunk to 0.5% ahead of 2024, though still 31% behind 2019. Upcoming releases like Marvel’s “Thunderbolts,” Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” and Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” are hoping to continue boosting ticket sales.
Alamo Drafthouse was acquired last year by Sony Pictures Entertainment. Before that, the circuit had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2021 as global theater chains were struggling to survive the prolonged COVID-related closures.
