Workers at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema inside City Foundry STL have voted to form a union, a result organizers say makes it the first modern-era movie theater union in Missouri. The roughly six-month campaign centered on a familiar workplace gripe with a very contemporary twist: a corporate-mandated QR-code ordering system that workers say gutted their tips and cut their hours.
The vote comes after Alamo Drafthouse introduced an online ordering system that lets customers order food and drinks digitally from their seats instead of through a server, according to St. Louis Public Radio. Logan Allgood, a union organizer and bartender at the theater, said the switch significantly reduced tips by cutting down on human interaction with each order. Allgood told the station that servers who once earned $10 to $20 an hour in tips — sometimes as much as $30 — now take home just $2 to $4 an hour from a shared tip pool.
The 18 percent service fee was already in place before QR-code ordering began. Allgood said the fee goes to the company rather than directly to workers as a gratuity. That distinction carries real legal weight in Missouri: mandatory service charges are considered employer gross receipts rather than protected employee tips unless management chooses to distribute them, according to the Dashtaki Law Firm. Missouri's minimum wage rose to $15.00 an hour as of January 1, 2026, and employers of tipped workers must pay a direct cash wage of at least $7.50 an hour while covering any shortfall if tips don't close the gap, per the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.
Hours Slashed, Schedules Posted Days Before Shifts
The tip squeeze wasn't the only complaint driving the vote. Jacob Katz, a union organizer and former shift lead and greeter at the theater, told the station his hours were cut nearly in half, dropping from 25 to 40 hours a week down to just 13 to 15 hours as shift lead. Workers also said they typically received their schedules on Wednesdays for shifts beginning as soon as Friday and running through the weekend, giving them only about 36 hours of lead time — shorter, the station reported, than the industry standard. Allgood said he hopes the union can secure at least a week's notice on schedules going forward.
Katz also told the station that continued employment at the theater is contingent on signing a handbook that allows the company to change its terms without notice. The St. Louis venue operates as a franchise under St. Louis Alamo Movies, LLC, run by Springfield, Missouri-based franchisees, a structure that dates to Alamo Drafthouse's 2021 Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring, according to KSDK. Workers say the QR-code ordering system was a corporate-level change imposed on the franchise, and that St. Louis ownership had limited say in the rollout and tried to push back against it, though the station reported that Alamo ownership had promised transparency about how tips would be distributed and did not deliver on that promise.
A Hard-Fought Campaign and a Lopsided Vote
Allgood said he connected with the United Auto Workers to begin the unionization drive, and the union backed the effort through to the ballot. Workers ultimately won the vote by a significant majority, though the National Labor Relations Board must still certify the results; Allgood told the station he hoped certification would come without objection within about a week, after which he planned to help elect a bargaining committee. His top priority, he said, is returning three workers — including Katz — to their jobs with full backpay, after they say they were wrongfully terminated for speaking out in favor of the union.
Those alleged firings are now the subject of a federal case. The International Union, UAW filed an unfair labor practice charge against St. Louis Alamo Movies, LLC with the National Labor Relations Board on September 28, alleging illegal discipline and retaliation against union activity, with the Region 14 charge citing violations under Sections 8(a)(1), 8(a)(3), and 8(a)(4) of the National Labor Relations Act. Ahead of the vote, local franchise management had distributed a packet to employees criticizing unions, including notices sent to staff emails, paystub portals, and breakroom boards stating that the company didn't believe a union was needed between management and employees, according to The A.V. Club. The station reported that the packet also criticized the UAW over fee collection and alleged inadequate member representation. Alamo Drafthouse did not respond to St. Louis Public Radio's request for comment.
Part of a Wider Pattern Across the Chain
The St. Louis vote is the latest in a string of organizing drives that have spread across Alamo Drafthouse since 2023, when workers in Downtown Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan voted to join UAW Local 2179, organizing nearly 300 theater workers in the chain's first unionization pushes, according to UAW Region 9A. Organizing efforts later spread to other Alamo Drafthouse locations. In Minnesota, Alamo Drafthouse workers in Woodbury voted to organize with Communications Workers of America Local 7250 on March 27, after a six-week organizing process, per the Union Advocate.
The St. Louis theater, a 45,000-square-foot venue with 10 auditoriums seating 932 guests and an attached bar called The Meaning of Bar, opened at City Foundry STL in November 2022 as part of a $23 million development. Clint McGill, a Region 4 UAW organizer, said the community support shown for the St. Louis vote — including backing from the St. Louis Board of Aldermen — demonstrated that St. Louis is a union town.
