Arise, ye workers: The Knights of Medieval Times embark on a noble quest to unionise

The life of a knight is full of danger and uncertainty. The jousting and sword fights take a toll on the body — as do the long hours of training required to maintain those skills. Knights are looked upon to lead, inspire and protect. Theirs is a position that relies on passion and is rewarded with glory.

But glory does not pay the bills, especially when it costs $5 a gallon to fuel one’s noble steed. Rising costs are just one of the many reasons why the knights of Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, are embarking on a noble quest to form a union.

Staff involved in the union effort told The Independent that, in addition to low pay, staffing and safety issues motivated them to organise.

“It just comes down to respect, money, and management,” says Antony Sanchez, a knight who has worked at Medieval Times in Lyndhurst for nearly eight years. “You work here and break your body, and they basically don’t care and will throw you away because they have this weird idea that there’s a line out the door of people that wanna work here.”

Staff at the New Jersey location say the company ignored their concerns about safety and requests for better pay, frequently giving them the impression that they are replaceable. Complaints that customers were harassing and allegedly sexually assaulting staff during parts of the show were not taken seriously by the company, they say.

“We tried tackling the harassment and the sexual assault issues with suggestions,” says Zaire Wood, who has worked at Medieval Times for four years — first as a squire and today as a knight.

“At least once a month a drunk guest could get too comfortable and be confronted but not escorted out. We felt the consequences didn’t match the crime,” he adds. “There was no way to communicate [these concerns] without being made to feel uncomfortable. This was a situation where staff would not feel like they would be looked after.”

Inappropriate touching of performers by the audience was raised numerous times, but the problem was “band-aided” by the company, according to Sanchez. It wasn’t until staff filed for union recognition that action was taken and the main stage was completely blocked off to guests, he adds.

Some 40 staff — among them knights, squires, stunt performers and stable hands who produce the nightly show at the Medieval-themed theatre and restaurant — will hold a vote later this month on becoming the first union in the company’s history.

Founded in 1983, Medieval Times employs more than 2,000 people at nine locations across the US. On a typical night, customers don paper crowns as they take their seats in a huge arena to watch a choreographed live action show in which knights battle knights with swords and lances. The show cast are both actors and stunt people, performing ambitious leaps and acrobatics. The storylines change every 4-5 years, and the current show, which has been running since 2017, is about a Queen and a misogynistic villainous knight.

During the show, the crowd feasts on Medieval-themed food such as roasted chicken and corn, without utensils — to be historically accurate ( although the company also offers “an array of meal options for those who are vegan, vegetarian or gluten-free, as commanded by the Queen”).

The push for recognition at Medieval Times comes amid a wave of unionisation efforts in the private sector across the country, fuelled by a shift in how people view their relationship with their employers as a result of the pandemic. Union membership in the US has been declining for decades, despite a brief increase from 10.3 percent to 10.8 percent of the total workforce in 2020. But a number of recent high-profile efforts saw staff at both Starbucks and the country’s second-largest employer, Amazon, unionised for the first time. Between October 2021 and March of this year, the National Labor Relations Board says representation petitions have increased by 57 per cent compared to the same period a year ago. President Joe Biden has lent his backing to both efforts and to worker organising in general, declaring himself the “most pro-union president in the history of the United States,” and public approval of labour unions is at its highest level since the 1960s.

It’s a sign of how widespread pro-union sentiment has become that the knights and squires of Medieval Times have joined the unionisation wave. Staff at the company say it has been a long time coming. Pay has never been great, but a job at Medieval Times comes with a certain amount of prestige, and even local fame, which makes them sought after. Some knights have even found viral fame on TikTok.

But staff say the company has taken advantage of their passion for the job, and used that prestige as an argument against raising salaries. Concerns about crowd control became more salient during the pandemic, when staff had to be worried about getting sick in addition to everything else they’re up against. Inadequate staffing has made staff feel overworked and burned out, something they say imperils their safety both in the arena and in the stables.

The reaction from management, or lack of reaction, is ultimately what prompted conversations amongst the staff about everything from pay, to staffing and general poor treatment. Long-term staffers say that their experience was rarely rewarded with better pay. A knight in New Jersey who has been with the company for years will get roughly the same rate — around $16 an hour — as a new starter in South Carolina.

These grievances are nothing new. Staff at Medieval Times attempted to unionise back in 2006, and raised many of the same issues. According to a New York Times report from the time, long-term staffers at the company noted a “corporatisation” of the show around 2000, when the company “began tightly standardising the fight choreography, so one knight could smoothly substitute for one another.”

That standarisation allows the company to refuse any discussions about pay increases even today, staff say.

“They’ve never given good raises,” says Sanchez, a former US Marine. “Once you learn everything in the show, they have no real reason to give you a good raise.”

“We bring things up and the management says ‘if you don’t like it find a new job,’” he adds.

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Amid a surge in the cost of living across the US, managers’ refusal to discuss salary raises has prompted staff to act. Last month, organisers applied to form a chapter of the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA), which represents performers at DisneyLand, among others.

“We started understanding how we’re all struggling, between our cars — getting to and from work — our bills. It became much clearer that if we didn’t embolden ourselves to try and get a better quality of work, then we wouldn’t be able to do something we tremendously enjoyed,” says Wood.

Staff will vote on whether they will become the company’s first union on 15 July, a development that could spark similar efforts at Medieval Times branches across the country.

In response, Medieval Times is fighting back and has been accused by staff of engaging in union busting. The company has even hired a “labour consultant” who represents companies that want to avoid unionisation efforts. Staff say the consultant has described himself as a “labour educator” and approached some staff hoping to change their minds. He is being paid $3200 per day plus expenses for his troubles, according to a document seen by The Independent— a sum of money that has further angered Medieval Times staff who have repeatedly had requests for better pay refused.

“I’m not a union organiser, but it’s very hard for me to see us being valued as much as they say we are. They pay someone $3200 a day to help fight the effort, and when people asked for like an extra $5,000 a year and they were told it was a rough year, and they’re trying to get things back on track,” says Sanchez. “That makes me sour.”

The Lyndhurst castle has also received a flurry of visitors from corporate HQ, according to staff — executives and general managers, some of them former knights themselves — all of whom are doing their best to convince staff to vote no.

Staff are confident, however, that they have the votes this time. Wood hopes the knights, squires and stable crew banding together will help inspire others to do the same.

“I really do hope that it can embolden other people,” he says. “Deciding to communicate with each other really was the bedrock of what started us really having a conversation about unionising.

“If people want to help us out, I feel like they can start by helping themselves, try communicating with work colleagues and try to understand where they stand on a potential union.”

Medieval Times did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.