Matching Brand and Workforce: Disney World Employees and Other US Workers Try for Improved Pay, Benefits

After eight years of financial crisis and recession, workers across the US are starting to fight for better pay and benefits. What is particularly noteworthy is that they are doing so in the southern US, a former bastion of hostility to workers.

Volkswagen workers at a new plant in Tennessee recently rejected a union contract by a close margin after Republican politicians in that state threatened to end all support for the factory, essentially putting ideology before the public benefits of more jobs and better wages. What is ironic about that is that virtually all other Volkswagen plants are unionized and the powerful German autoworkers union representatives comprise almost 50 percent of the votes on the company board, so that the company may put further expansion on hold as they simply increase exports to US from unionized plants elsewhere.

Of perhaps greater public interest is the push by workers at Disney World in Florida for improved pay and benefits. All of those people dressed up as Mickey, Snoopy and other characters, who happily pose for snapshots with children, are professionals with families, doing a job to make a living. Some earn just a bit more than the minimum wage. Disney resorts live and die via attendance: every Disney employee can tell you how many 'guests' are on the property on any given day. Disney does not want and can not afford a strike or other indication that anything but happiness reigns in the land of make-believe.

But in the land of how-do-I-pay-my-bills, a modestly strengthening economy and a people who have decided rock-bottom has been hit are insisting that in order for there to be a future for employee who is also a consumer and voter, improvement has to be demanded. JL

Emily Fox reports in CNN/Money:

Cinderella is asking for a raise.
As are roughly 37,000 unionized employees at the happiest place on earth -- Walt Disney World. The workers are preparing to negotiate for higher wages, more affordable benefits and improvements to pension plans as their union contract expires at the end of March.

"I love my job, but I have been working here for 20 years, and making $13.45 after that long doesn't sound like much," said Sherry Shulz, 65, who trains new hires. She said more money would ease her concerns over paying for health care and gas for her 40-mile commute to work.
Workers at the Orlando, Fla. theme park are represented by a coalition of six different local unions called the Service Trades Council.


Disney (DIS, Fortune 500) employees' call for higher wages comes at a time when there is a push by hourly wage workers nationwide for better pay. But the park workers' demands for better benefits and more pension stands a little in contrast to retail and fast food workers, who have been fighting just to be able to qualify for benefits.
The unionized Disney workers also get opportunities for overtime, as well as paid holidays and vacation time.
"Disney is a great company to work for and they care about their people ... but it's very hard to get by on what many of them make, and we think they can do more financially," said Ed Chambers, president of the Service Trades Council.
The group represents local branches of the United Food and Commercial Workers, Teamsters, Transportation Communications International Union, Unite Here and International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. It was formed in 1971, just as Disney World was preparing to open and hiring its first workers, Chambers said.
Negotiations for the new contract will begin in March.

 

Wages vary greatly based on jobs and how long employees have worked with the company. For example, a Disney character's wage starts at $8.20 per hour, and maxes out at $13.59. Base pay for an entertainment technician, on the other hand, starts at $14.75 an hour and is capped at $21.60.
That compares to Florida's minimum wage of $7.93.
Bernadette Davis, a Disney spokeswoman, said that its goal is to come to a reasonable agreement that meets the needs of its employees and the company.


Workers will be asking for more than higher wages. Don Curtis, a 45 year-old transportation coordinator who's worked at Disney for 20 years, wants improvements to his pension plan.
"I have three kids and I don't need to live like "lifestyles of the rich and famous" when I retire, but I want to have enough to fall back on and pay my bills."
Keeping the cost of benefits down will be another component of the negotiations, said Donna-Lynne Dalton, a former Disney performer and treasurer for the Service Trades Council.


Chambers said Disney had offered to extend the current contract for another year and raise wages by 3.5% back in August, but two of the local unions rejected the idea, hoping for larger raises.
Some of the union pressure comes from the fact that Disney has been raking in money and workers feel the company should pass along the gains. Helped by record traffic, the company reported a 16% increase in operating profit from its parks and resorts division in the most recent quarter.
Shulz, the long-time Disney worker, is optimistic that Disney will do right by its workers, and she wants to stay in her job for years to come.
"I would not want to work anywhere else, but we want some more money to pay for things in the outside world," she said.