STRIKING workers at Vue Cinema in Glasgow’s St Enoch’s Centre staged a midnight picket, as they battle for better pay, terms and conditions.

The Unite hospitality workers targeted the nationwide premier of the latest Avatar film, due to be screened at 00.01 this morning in an effort to draw attention to their demand for safe transport home to be provided to workers covering similar screenings.

Bolstered in number by members of the CWU and Nautilus trade unions who attended in solidarity, the workers, who are also demanding a living wage and an end to low or zero-hours contracts at the site, enjoyed widespread support from the city’s Christmas revellers — one even offering to disrupt the screening in solidarity, an offer gracefully declined by the workers.

Unite convener at Vue St Enoch, Yousef Kidwai, told the Star: “We’re out here today at the midnight release of Avatar here to show that we are committed to picketing, to going on strike in order to secure our real living wage, our paid and safe transport home, our better contracted hours and our union recognition.

“It’s so important that we’ve come out here today, late night in the cold as a young workforce, a young hospitality workforce, where we face such a toxic working culture and such little union presence, to stand together and say, hey, look, we deserve better for our workforce, for our colleagues, our friends.

“Looking at the state of the place, looking at the state of the industry, the sector, me, my colleagues, my friends, we can’t take this anymore.

“We have to work together and go out and demand better.”

Vue Cinema was contacted for comment.