IFC Center can be a quiet place when the union is out, but could AMC, Loews and Regal theaters be next? (Photo: STV)

This week's Village Voice features no shortage of film writing, from the cover package extolling 9 Songs (and plugging the hell out of pornographer indie upstart Tartan Films, for whatever reason) to critic Ed Halter's update of the situation affecting the new IFC Center and the projectionists union it has frozen out.

It looks like some IFC Center advisory board members are starting to bristle at their association with a facility so insensitive to organized labor. For starters, Halter quotes a portion of a letter sent from John Sayles to theater boss John Vanco:

"As the other movie theaters in New York . . . have been able to come to some kind of equitable agreement with this union, I can only imagine that your stance is part of a general anti-organized-labor policy of Cablevision. ... This is not something that I can in good conscience be a party to, and if no plans have been made to begin negotiations, I ask that you remove my name from your Board of Advisors."

The sentiment is noble, but "equitable agreement" may not be the best way to describe those "other movie theaters'" relationships with IATSE Local 306. The Reeler spoke today with union president Michael Goucher, who explained an arrangement that might make the IFC Center standoff look downright equitable by comparison.

"We have with certain individual theaters within a chain of theaters (an agreement that) they have the right to have managers operate, provided they meet certain criteria," Goucher said. "In the cases where it is contractually agreed, they must be managers. Once we agree to let that happen, we have no control over what the criteria are--the circumstances or whatever. As far as we're concerned, it is based on a negotiated agreement, and the negotiated agreement is what deterimnes what we will not do and what we will do."

In other words, Regal, Loews and AMC do not have any obligation to use union projectionists--and there is no guarantee that they are.

But how did the union ever agree to this?

"The reason this was acceded to in New York City is because at one time, some of these companies were going bankrupt," Goucher explained. "We got hoodwinked, because those bankruptcies were all absolute phony bankruptcies, and they were meant to make the price of the company attractive to a new buyer."

The Reeler is still waiting for comment from the Big Three, all of whose Local 306 contracts are due for renegotiation (AMC's and Loews negotiations will likely remain on hold until the chains can work out the details of their pending merger). Further complicating matters, Goucher says the union has enlisted Sen. Hilllary Clinton's help to look into allegations that someone with the licensing arm of the NYC Dept. of Consumer Affairs handed out exam answers to chain employees seeking projection licenses.

Sen. Clinton's press office also has not yet returned calls for comment, but DCA spokeswoman Dina Improta told The Reeler that the allegations are false. "About a year-and-a-half ago, we referred this complaint to the city's Department of Investigation," Improta said, "who did a complete review and in fact found that no one had sold or gave answers away for the test, as alleged. But what did happen was that the DOI investigation found that a theater chain actually was sending their employees in to memorize each question and would create a study guide. And then they posted this study guide online. And while that isn't necessarily illegal, it does show poor judgment, and we have since worked with DOI and taken their recommendations on how to thwart that attempt to give away the answers to the test."

Neither Improta nor Goucher would name the chain that had been investigated (though Improta did say that the investigation has since closed), and my own continued inquiries yielded nothing I can write without risk of being sued.

Bottom line? Sayles--and not just a few other powerful New Yorkers--might be writing a lot more letters before this is all said and done.