Landmark Kendall Square Cinema

dwodeyla is correct – most theatre employees like their work despite the low wages – working at a theater is different than a restaurant or cafe, and if you have a good manager and the staff gels, it can be a really fun place to work.

It is my understanding through talking to a former Kendall employee, that the greater issue at hand for this unionization was not necessarily wages, but also that the Landmark chain was recently bought by billionaire Mark Cuban and that management changes resulting from the take-over really changed the atmosphere and treatment of the employees. Sometimes respect and a fun workplace mean as much as wages.

The fact is that larger theaters have an incredible amount of turnover, with only a handful of regular staff that doesn’t leave. A place like the Kendall may have attracted people to stay longer, and therefore band together to unionize.

My own theater (Somerville Theatre) was subject to a strike when 3 self-proclaimed anarchists infiltrated the projection staff and tried to unionize; rather than keep working and voting later to join the union (the proper procedure) they went on strike with one days notice, despite being warned not to do so by the union they were trying to join! In the end, we gladly took on experienced union projectionists and signed a contract with the union and they agreed that the 3 strikers would not be allowed to work there anymore. The 3 punks were more interested in holding signs and chanting, and spreading false information than actually working for a living at a better wage, so now we have replaced them with some of the best projection staff in the city, some union booth veterans who used to work the ‘big’ theaters are now in our booth.

Our floorstaff, however, thought that the strike was crazy, many of them pointing out that their jobs were so easy that they didn’t justify inflated wages. When the 3 strikers tried to get support from the theater staff, the staff banded together AGAINST them like a family under attack and it made everyone closer.

I try to make the theater a fun place to work, an easy place to work, because I know it is low paying. Our staff stays because they LIKE it here, because they need a fun part time job, not because they are trying to make a living off of a 15-hour a week paycheck. It is too bad that Landmark turned the Kendall Square into an unhappy place to work for its employees; perhaps if they had been nicer and more understanding, they wouldn’t have had to go through this unionization.

As far as I know, this does not effect the Embassy, since their employees were not involved in organization, nor did they vote.

Well, Ironchef, care to tell me who you are since I am not afraid to sign my own name to my own words? Not that I want to turn this cinema-enthusiast webpage about the Kendall into a giant running internet argument about the (yawn) same old Somerville strike stuff, mind you.

“yep, in order to expedite the contract negotiations the strikers allowed other union members to take their spots at the somerville theatre and take work at other theatres the union represented. no big deal.”

Umm, and what theaters do they work at? Seems to me (and I honestly DO believe it is a shame) that there is not enough work for the senior projectionists in the local, nevermind newcomers.

And as far as the ‘slander’ clause, 1) That contract expired (though we auto-renewed it because we LIKE our union workers) and I have said nothing but good things about the IATSE union, not anything slanderous.

“i’d like to think that all the worker perform important roles in keeping a theatre running and that’s not very nice of you to demean the work of your floor staff like that.”

Again, I am only relating what THEY expressed to me. Ask any of my staff members how they feel about me, I have full confidence you will hear good things.

You mistake my own personal feelings about the individuals who struck at Somerville with how I feel about unions. Talk to any of the long-time union projectionists in the local and they will tell you how I supported them during my tenure at Loews. Talk to my father, who is active in his union, or my stepfather, who also is a union member at his job. If you talk to me personally about my politics you would find I am a reasonable man and quite supportive of labor rights. Talk to former Kendall Square employee Nancy, who helped the campaign to unionize the Kendall (as mentioned above) and she will tell you I supported her efforts.

You may counter this with ‘why didn’t you help your own employees when they tried to organize if you love labor so much?’ To that I say that the night the 3 organizers came to me with the union rep, I gave no answer (being that I was not in a position to do so, since I do not own the theater) and the reply I got from one was ‘if you don’t meet our requests we are walking tomorrow’. This was a threat. I didn’t hear “we are signing cards and will continue to work”. So I replied “nice working with you then” because I knew they weren’t following procedure (like the smart people at Kendall, or the projection staff at Loews LTM who did it the right way).

To be candid, I was so personally offended by the hate directed towards me by employees who had never ever expressed their problems with me in any way before this assault. I did not decide their wages, they worked flexible schedules, and I honestly felt I had treated them kindly in passing, and yet they directed so much hate and malice towards me personally in this process that to this day I find myself saddened by the whole thing.

I am sure you will respond, and perhaps justly so, but after that I ask that perhaps you contact me privately (I believe you can email me through this site) so that our squabble does not hijack this nice website.

“anyway. congrats to the kendall workers! you rock!”

I wholeheartedly agree!

Truly a great moviegoing experience. Walked to this theatre 2 miles from the Porter Square station, not knowing there was one much closer. Saw “Jonestown”. Wow. On the outside, the theatre is set back from the street with a nice walkway with bike racks (bike lanes out front). The theatre’s architecture says here it’s Art Deco, I guess, it looked like an erector set structure in the coolest sense. They had popcorn and no horrible candy, just organic cookies, etc. Up 3 small stairs and to the back theater. Lots of seats, very comfortable, great leg room. Faux stain glass swirly structures on both sides of the auditorium, 2 on each side. High ceilings. String lights on the floors, even separating the handicapped section.

Opening Day article with exterior photo:
View link

The Kendall Theatre is kind of a neat theatre also, and if there’s a particularly “hot” movie playing there at any given moment, one can expect long lines at the ticket counter inside. The Garage is reasonably priced, but their system’s awfully wierd. Anyway, back to the subject at hand, I’ve seen a number of movies there, such as Citizen Ruth, Good Will Hunting, Southie, Monument Avenue, Volver,
On the Waterfront, Fantasia, Fantasia 2000, and afew others. Sure wish they’d occasionally show some great golden oldie-but-goody classic films, but it looks like that won’t happen.