Sundance Workers Unionize Using Redford's Words

Employees at Sundance Institute Form Union, Citing Founder’s Legacy

Employees at the Sundance Institute have taken a significant step by forming a union, using the words of the institute’s late founder, actor-director-activist Robert Redford, to support their cause. The Sundance Institute Workers Union, represented by the Communication Workers of America Local 9003, delivered a petition to the institute’s leadership on Monday, requesting voluntary recognition by Friday.

Sara Kenrick, a coordinator for event operations at Sundance and one of the organizers of the unionization effort, explained that employees feel they need a voice in shaping the future of the organization. “We have decided that if we’re going to preserve the legacy that Sundance has built, we need to have a say in what happens moving forward, as the people who it affects the most,” she told The Salt Lake Tribune.

One of the key issues driving the unionization effort was the decision to move the Sundance Film Festival to Boulder, Colorado, starting in 2027. Kenrick noted that employees had no input in this decision. “We had no open conversations with leadership about how staff would like to see the festival move forward,” she said. “We had no vote on where [the festival] was going to move after Park City. We had the opportunity to strongly voice our opinions, and we were ignored.”

Kenrick also criticized the leadership for not being familiar with the local communities where the festival is held. “It’s extremely frustrating to have people in our leadership who don’t live here, neither Utah nor Boulder, tell us what would be best for us and the festival that we run,” she said. Additionally, employees argue that the institute is severely understaffed, leading to a situation where they are often spread thin across multiple projects.

The Sundance Institute offers labs to independent filmmakers, where new writers and directors can workshop their scripts with professional actors — overseen by advisers who are industry veterans. The festival showcases completed films and is the institute’s most public-facing event.

In a statement issued Monday, the institute’s board and leadership acknowledged “the decision from a group of staffers to organize as a union.” They emphasized their support for unions and their contributions to American society, stating that they respect staff’s ability to organize collectively and value their dedication to the Institute’s vision.

According to its 990s, the forms that nonprofit groups must file with the Internal Revenue Service, Sundance Institute took in just over $42 million in revenue in the fiscal year ending August 2024, and had net assets of more than $66 million. Two weeks ago, the institute signed a partnership deal with Rolex, the luxury watch manufacturer, which will become Sundance’s “official partner and exclusive timepiece;” the value of that deal was not announced.

The employees, in their union’s mission statement, quote Redford, who died in September at age 89. The mission statement says that one of Redford’s core principles when he founded the Sundance Institute in 1981 was to “protect our people.”

“The staff of the Institute has been and always will be its greatest asset,” Redford wrote, according to the union’s mission statement. “It is important that we provide the team with the support to execute and thrive in their positions. If things get out of balance and team members are spread thin, we are not serving any purpose properly. The Institute nurtures and supports artists — the same should be true with our team members.”

About 100 institute employees would be eligible to join the union, Kenrick said, and about 70 signed on to the unionization effort. About a third of those eligible employees live and work in Utah, she said; the rest live largely in and around Los Angeles and New York, with a few scattered across the country.

“Since we’re so separate, working remotely, working in different states all across the country, we’re pretty siloed,” Kenrick said. “I think that’s made it so that any individual can be told one thing, and someone else can be told another, and we won’t cross-check. So we are now cross-checking.”

Kenrick said Utah institute employees are concerned that the festival leaving for Colorado could mean more of the institute could relocate as well — even with Sundance leadership issuing reassurances, as festival director Eugene Hernandez did last week, that the institute “is still anchored in Utah.”

“I know many Utah staff have been concerned since the [Boulder] announcement that Sundance is no longer concerned with their history or their place in Utah,” Kenrick said. “Staff have moved to Utah specifically for their jobs with Sundance, and have built homes, families, communities here — and then have no say in whether this festival would move out of state. … We don’t want to feel invisible or blindsided any more.”

When the institute announced the festival’s new location in March, acting CEO Amanda Kelson said the three finalists — Boulder, Cincinnati and a combined Salt Lake City/Park City bid — “were all so close.” Boulder won out, she said, “because we felt like it was a place where we could continue to grow and expand the festival.”

Sundance Institute has experienced major leadership shifts in the last five years. Keri Putnam, who served as CEO for a decade, stepped down in August 2021. Her successor, Joana Vicente, held the job for less than three years, abruptly quitting in March 2024. Kelso, a former top executive at Instagram, was named acting CEO — a post she still holds.

With those changes in leadership, Kenrick said, “we’ve noticed that the way the festival looks, the way the institute feels, and the way that staff are supported can change drastically based off of who is in charge. We wanted a union to protect not only what we love about the Sundance Institute, but what we want to change.”