For greater than two months, newly unionized employees on the Medieval Occasions in Buena Park have been on strike, picketing on the standard themed dinner theater. Final week, clients, apparently annoyed with protesting employees blocking the car parking zone entrance, lashed out.
On Thursday, a number of picketers have been struck by a patron in a shifting car or have been shoved by a second patron who obtained out of the passenger seat of the automotive, in accordance with employee interviews and video footage of the altercation posted to social media.
Movies present a automotive trying to entry the Medieval Occasions car parking zone unsuccessfully, a person within the passenger seat exiting the car and swinging at picketers, and the motive force, nonetheless behind the wheel, driving the car via the road of protesters.
Medieval Occasions actor and strike organizer Erin Zapcic stated a minimum of six employees have been damage within the incident. Essentially the most severely injured individual suffered a fractured tailbone, she stated. All protesters have since returned to the picket line, she stated.
Lt. Ryan Dieringer of the Buena Park Police Division confirmed police arrested one male Medieval Occasions patron concerned.
Additionally on Thursday, Dieringer stated, police had arrested a picketer for punching the hood of an oncoming car trying to enter the car parking zone. He stated the protests had been peaceable up till final week.
Zapcic alleged the employee concerned in that incident had solely hit the automotive after the automotive had struck him, including that the arrest was for a vandalism misdemeanor.
In an emailed assertion, a Medieval Occasions spokesperson urged towards protests that interfered with the corporate’s enterprise.
“We don’t condone any form of violence on the picket line, whatever the perpetrator,” the spokesperson stated. “We respect the best of our workers to strike, and we hope they respect our proper to conduct our enterprise. Our friends and their households even have the best to be entertained, free from the blocking of their vehicles, any threats or intimidation. We ask for peace, calm and respect from everybody right now.”
Medieval Occasions Dinner and Event, based mostly in Irving, Texas, is a Spanish nobility-themed dinner theater present with live-action jousts on horseback. It operates 10 Medieval Occasions castles within the U.S. and Canada.
Zapcic stated negotiations with Medieval Occasions for employees’ first contract have established some widespread floor, however have made little headway on predominant problems with pay will increase, improved security procedures and higher therapy of horses. Medieval Occasions all through the strike has continued its Buena Park manufacturing with out the unionized employees, as a substitute utilizing out-of-state actors sourced from different castles, and is promoting for brand spanking new hires, she stated.
Forged member Erin Zapcic, seen right here on the picket line in February, performs the queen on the Buena Park Medieval Occasions. She additionally serves as a union steward for the present solid.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Occasions)
To immediate the corporate to interact severely in negotiations, Zapcic stated, the group of some two dozen protesters not too long ago moved the picket line nearer to the car parking zone entrance, marching alongside Seashore Boulevard and stopping vehicles from simply accessing parking for the dinner theater. Some clients have been “irate” in response, Zapcic stated.
Medieval Occasions’ representatives didn’t reply to requests for touch upon the state of the continuing negotiations.
“The principle points are nonetheless excellent and nonetheless just about at loggerheads,” Zapcic stated. “None of us needs to be out right here for 70-plus days, however we’re gonna keep on right here for so long as it takes. All we’re asking is individuals don’t cross the picket line.”
Zapcic usually performs the position of Queen Doña Maria Isabella within the Buena Park Medieval Occasions manufacturing.
“As an alternative of understanding and respecting what we’re preventing towards, friends turned violent,” stated Jake Bowman, a employee who performs the position of a knight, in a sequence of posts on Twitter after the incident. “Don’t come to this present till they work with us to make it secure and higher for everybody. It’s not asking lots, simply go see a film as a substitute.”
Medieval Occasions performers in Buena Park voted to unionize in November and went on strike Feb. 11.
In late March, the placement’s sound and lighting division introduced its intent to unionize. The Nationwide Labor Relations Board has scheduled a union election for April 26, the place the group will vote on whether or not to affix the Worldwide Alliance of Theatrical Stage Staff.
