August 4, 2025
EMPLOYES OF NICKEL
SHOWS FORM A UNION.
WILL DEMAND MORE PAY AND
DAY OFF A WEEK.
Those in Charge of Movement Claim
Present Salaries Are Too Low,
Considering Work and
Long Hours.
A new labor union, new at least in this city, will spring into life full grown at a meeting of its fifty members at Labor headquarters, Locust and Twelfth streets, tomorrow night. The charter recognizing the Kansas City Nickel Show Operators' Union, which was sent for yesterday, will be read and officers elected. Things will then begin to happen to the managements of the seventy-five or more 5-cent arcades, nickelodeons and electric theaters scattered about the city.
If they do not at once accede to a demand for an immediate raise in salaries, a day off each week for recuperative purposes and shorter hours all around, lantern operators, piano players, doorkeepers and even the blonde haired women cashiers may make a general exit.
SAY THEY ARE POORLY PAID.
"We are the poorest paid employes in the city considering the skill required of us and the long hours we are forced to keep," said H. C. Bernard, Seventy-fifth street and West Prospect avenue, the president of the union, last night. "Door-keepers and operators get $12 a week while girl cashiers and piano players get only from $2 to $4. I can't remember of even having heard of a singer receiving more than $8 in this city for the repeated strain on his or her vocal cords.
"I know of one skillful operator of a lantern who got $25 a week in Chicago a month ago and is now drawing a weekly check for $4 and he often works 15 hours a day with no day off."
A business manager in the Yale 5 cent shows general offices said yesterday that he did not fear a strike and that one if it came would not seriously retard the business of his company.
CLAIMS WORK IS LIGHT.
"I will tough a wire the minute they strike and get 100 operators from Chicago in short order," said he. "The work done by the operators, doorkeepers and singers is very light, although somewhat tedious. As a rule they have the forenoons off and can use them to make money at other things. My company will fight a strike to the last, and if a union is organized will discharge every man or woman caught attending a union meeting."
The new union will be affiliated with the International Theatrical Stage Employes' union, and will have auxiliaries taking in all employes, male and female, of the 5-cent shows. Several secret meetings have been held by the union organizers in a room at labor headquarters and about fifty operators have joined. There are about 500 employes of the nickel theaters in the city.
Labels: Chicago, employment, Locust street, moving pictures, organizations, Prospect avenue, theater, Twelfth street
