AMC Theatres, the company with the largest share of the American movie theater market, gives its salaried managers overtime and holiday pay while the crew, who essentially does most of the manual labor, get paid an hourly-based rate regardless of whether they work overtime or on the holidays. Paid sick leave and other paid time off is also not offered to hourly employees. I'm calling on AMC to start offering overtime, holiday pay and paid sick leave to its hourly employees.

We do the same, if not more, than management. So how are they paid time and a half on holidays while other AMC employees don't receive holiday pay? They've told me they're not required to by law. I looked into it myself and found out that the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) exempts us (hourly crew) from its overtime requirements “any employee employed by an establishment which is a motion picture theater.” 29 U.S.C. §213(b)(27). The FLSA was enacted in 1936. Movie theaters have drastically change since then -- so have the job requirements and daily job duties of movie theater employees. For example, not all movie theaters only show movies anymore -- they have full service dine-in restaurants that still serve food whether or not you buy a movie ticket.

I believe that the movie theater exemption should be taken out of the FLSA in order to truly protect the everyday employee, but even so, that doesn't mean that AMC can't provide greater benefits for its hourly employees right now. I believe companies such as AMC, who make well over a billion dollars in revenue a year (5 billion reported in 2016), can afford to pay the new era of movie theater employees overtime, as well as holiday and sick leave like salaried employees already receive.