Theater, staff face off over lax mask rules
Real Art Ways, a Hartford arts organization and movie theater, is defending COVID-19 safety precautions for visitors and staff despite a dispute over mandatory masks with an employee who was terminated Thursday.
Bernardo Mclaughlin, who has worked part time for nine years in a front-of-house position, said he was fired after he joined other front-of-house staffers demanding that masks be mandated at the facility and pay be increased to $15 per hour for front-of-house employees.
“We ask people to support the front-of-house staff and to not patronize this business and to bring pressure on Real Art Ways to bring this into alignment with its own mission,” Mclaughlin said.
Diego Vasquez, communications manager, said Real Art Ways is confident that its mask rules are sufficient. “Staff and public are strongly encouraged to wear masks, which are provided upon request,” Vasquez said, citing
the advice of Dr. Sten Vermund, the dean of Yale School of Public Health. Real Art Ways has participated in COVID-19 safety workshops over the last year conducted by Vermund.
Tricia Haggerty Wenz, director
of development, said, “We would never let anyone go who was protecting the health and safety of people here.”
Real Art Ways Executive Director Will K. Wilkins, in response to Mclaughlin’s allegations, said, he was “not in a position to talk about personnel matters.”
There is no universal mask mandate in Connecticut, although the state recommends mask-wearing in public indoor spaces. The state Department of Public Health has left it up to restaurants and movie theaters to decide specific COVID-19 safety precautions.
Gov. Ned Lamont has also given towns and cities the authority to issue their own mask mandates. Hartford currently does not have a mask mandate.
The dispute comes as COVID19 cases are increasing, fueled by the highly contagious delta variant, which can sometimes be transmissible to and from even vaccinated people, health officials have said.
Mclaughlin said he was terminated after presenting a petition to Wilkins demanding a mask requirement and higher pay.
“He fired me in front of us six. They stood with me,” Mclaughlin said.
The petition, among other statements, said staffers “expect management’s full support in the unlikely scenario that a customer elects to put us at undue risk by not wearing a mask at the counter, and we are forced to refuse service.”
Mclaughlin said that he is paid $16 an hour, but his peers make less than $15.
After his termination, Mclaughlin and sympathizers protested outside the 56 Arbor St. location.
One of those standing beside Mclaughlin in his protest was Peython Echeson-russell, who has worked part time, front of house since June. “We have repeatedly asked management to back us up in requiring masks. They have repeatedly refused. We are told we can’t deny services,” Echeson-russell said. “We want the collective power to not be berated and intimidated by upper management.”
Wilkins added “I don’t know a strong difference in a moment in time between a strong suggestion and a mandate.”