Disney World Union Wage Negotiations
Last week, Walt Disney World made an offer to Cast Member unions representing over 35,000 employees that would get them to a $15 hourly wage…by 2021. Disney’s latest proposal would increase wages by $2 per hour in the 6 months after approval, then to $13/hour in September 2019, $14/hour in October 2020, and $15/hour in October 2021.
Under this offer, Disney would also distribute the $1,000 bonus it had previously denied to union employees. In exchange, unionized Cast Members would have to agree to a number of concessions, including several reducing their ability to receive overtime pay, plus transfer procedures, grievance and disciplinary protocol, and scheduling policies.
Some union leaders called this proposal “dead on arrival” as it undid protections that union workers have bargained-for over the course of the last 40 years. This offer follows a year of tense negotiations between Cast Member unions and Disney, and is (perhaps?) a sign that the chasm between the two sides is finally starting to be bridged.
In this post, we’ll editorialize a bit, wading into the controversial waters of this ongoing dispute between the Walt Disney Company and its Cast Members…
Our Thoughts
This has been a topic of discussion on social media for a while, and also one that has recently popped up in the comments section here a few times. I’ve been surprised at the number of people who are averse to Walt Disney World increasing Cast Member wages.
From what I can surmise, the biggest opposition is a result of guests not wanting to bear the costs of these increased wages. While it’s certainly possible that Disney would try to pass on some of those costs to consumers, it’s erroneous to assume that Disney prices are predicated upon its costs.
This is demonstrably false. Disney charges what the market will bear, increasing prices on an annual basis not at the rate of inflation or because its costs are increasing at a commensurate level, but because they can. Walt Disney World is an extremely savvy and sophisticated business–they are going to maximize profits to the greatest degree economically feasible. It’s not as if they are “holding back” and prices will really skyrocket if Cast Member wages go up. If Disney could further skyrocket prices, that will happen irrespective of Cast Member wages.
Others oppose higher wages from the oddly ideological perspective that Cast Members all work entry level jobs meant for high schoolers, and thus they don’t deserve more money. That’s an interesting position given that Walt Disney World is the largest single-site employer in the United States, and given that the service and tourism sectors dominate Central Florida.
Unless the region is inhabited almost exclusively by high schoolers, there are necessarily adults working frontline positions at Walt Disney World. The notion that minimum wage jobs are stepping stone positions overlooks the reality that these jobs have to be filled by someone–and not just students. (Nationwide, only 12% of minimum wage jobs are filled by workers 19 years old or younger.)
While we anticipate this being a controversial topic, it really doesn’t need to be one. Even if you’re against the concept of a living wage or are otherwise averse to wage increases for some reason, you should be in favor of this…out of selfishness.
Increasing wages means Walt Disney World can attract and retain friendly and helpful Cast Members who will in turn improve the quality of your vacation. Cast Members breathe life into Walt Disney World, and they have long been the defining element of the guest experience. (“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.”)
We have been fortunate to have wonderful Cast Member interactions and encounters over the years, and I absolutely want more passionate Cast Members who are proud of the work they do, the company they do it for, and strive to make magical moments for guests. We all win if Cast Members are treated well and feel valued.
(Personally, I cringe every time someone refers to frontline Cast Members as ‘low skill’ jobs. I’ve seen Cast Members keep their cool as irate guests berate them for attractions being down, long wait times, and other inconveniences wholly outside their control. The ability to be restrained and helpful in these situations is most certainly a valuable skill–and one I don’t possess.)
Some Cast Member positions at Walt Disney World, most notably housekeeping, have been understaffed for a while, forcing Walt Disney World to operate shorthanded. Walt Disney World is already offering over $1,000 sign-up bonuses (or more, for some positions) to fill 3,500+ positions right now. Unsurprisingly, these one-time bonuses have been ineffective at filling the Cast Member shortage with other Orlando-area employers offering higher wages.
With this offer, we wonder to what extent Disney realizes wage increases the writing is on the wall for higher wages. At some point, increasing wages will be a strict necessity to attract more workers in the next few years. With several new hotels, theme park attractions & lands, restaurants, and more opening between now and 2021, Walt Disney World is going to create thousands of new positions via expansion.
Given that Walt Disney World isn’t the only theme park complex in Central Florida that is currently in expansion mode, they will have to compete in an already tight labor market for a limited supply of workers. Maybe Walt Disney World wouldn’t hit $15/hour by 2021 out of necessity, but there’s no way $10/hour would cut as they seek to fill new roles while competing with other local employers.
Even if there is a slightly accelerated rate of automation spurred by the wage increases (some amount of automation is happening regardless), the impact of that automation is pretty much a moot point given the currently-unfilled positions and jobs that will be created in the next several years.
Offering a guarantee of wage increases today that might be necessary by 2021 gives Disney the chance to at least extract some concessions out of union workers. It seems to us that the approach here is to lead with straightforward wage growth that is tangible and easy to understand, and behind that place the costs, which are nebulous and difficult to quantity.
The elimination of some types of overtime is certainly quantifiable by those who are paid it in some circumstances now but wouldn’t receive the added pay going forward, but precise numbers are not readily ascertainable and consistent among workers. For some, this would be a huge concession; for others, it would be no loss at all.
In reviewing the other trade-offs, it appears that the underlying impetus for almost every single move is to weaken the union and the protections it can offer members. The company has regularly tried to use the carrot of monetary incentives–knowing most of its workers are living paycheck to paycheck and need that money–to leverage concessions out of workers. For once, the workers have the position of strength, and Disney is not used to negotiating from such a position.
Ultimately, we think it’s good to see Disney finally come to the table with an offer that’s fair in terms of wages. Frankly, we’re surprised that it’s taken so long. The national headlines made earlier this year in Los Angeles Times and New York Times articles about employees of Disney’s theme parks who live in poverty didn’t exactly paint the “family-friendly” company in the best light. Making a splashy announcement about Disney’s commitment to its Cast Members and increasing their wages would earn the company some goodwill. From our view, it would also be the right thing to do, and would make us feel a bit better (even if we know they’re unrelated) about the nonstop barrage of up-charges and price increases at Walt Disney World.
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Your Thoughts
Any thoughts to add about Cast Member wages at Walt Disney World? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
Welp, this is an old post, but we can throw that theory in the garbage. Disney is getting further and further from traditional family values, and while I don’t care what other people choose for their lives, I do think they are teetering on losing some of that audience if they keep doing silly things like retheming rides, putting warnings on Dumbo, and firing movie stars while doing nothing about an employee feeding children into a wood chipper. Top that with filming Mulan in a providence of China with terrible human rights abuses, and I really question top leadership these days. Odd to me they laid off 30,000 employees, and then re-open and expand Disneyland? And the feeling of the parks seem to be moving more and more towards “sameness”, ie changing the castle colors, etc. When they added consumer products in with parks, I wondered if they were aiming to make all the parks like giant toy replicas. The cast are still wonderful, but there is a shift there, too. I’m concerned Disney is moving in the direction of canned experiences that will make it more like King’s Island. If they do that, they can forget people paying the kind of money they did in the past. Their cast and wonderful customer service and unique experiences is what made it DISNEY. If all they think about is the bottom line, to the negligence of their cast and customers, I think they are going to hurt themselves considerably.
Am I the only one who heard the good news about the agreement reached this weekend??
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/disney-world-fight-for-15-minimum-wage_us_5b8457c8e4b0162f471b7d44
Some facts about the relationship between Disney and the “Union”
The Service Trades Council Union is an umbrella union consisting of six union locals. Those six are IATSE, TCU, TEAMSTERS, UFCW and two UniteHere locals. This umbrella union and its 6 members – the Locals mentioned above- exist solely because it benefits Disney and only because Disney allows them to. Florida is a Right to Work state, meaning even if an employer recognizes a labor union, workers do not have to join or pay dues to receive the EXACT SAME benefits negotiated by the union. A union must have 51% or more membership in a Right to Work state in order to operate with any leverage. Because STCU only collects dues from approx 38,000 of the eligible 125,000 cast members, Disney could call for a “card check” with the Department of Labor at anytime and the STCU would be forced to dissolve. Poof!! No more union. So why doesn’t Disney do this? Because the STCU operates as another human resource arm of the company. It looks good publicly to “allow” negotiations when in reality, Disney could do so without unions, due to the low membership numbers. This has been the scenario for 40 years. The STCU does the company’s dirty work for them in regards to terminations and discipline. The reality is why would any cast member pay union dues when they receive the exact same benefits as those that do? Sure, a dues paying CM may have a better shot at job retention when the grievance process is utilized, but the company has final say on EVERY grievance due to holding the upper hand due to low membership. It’s all a dog and pony show, all because it benefits the company as a whole. The STCU has a long history of “same old same old” leadership. The good old boy network, where these individual union leaders make income much higher than the struggling members they represent.
The perfect example of Disney’s control of the STCU was when they denied the paltry $1000 bonus only to union members. The company knows the threat of any work stoppage is a non issue. The union members can’t even legally picket if they wanted to on WDW’s private property. The STCU is just another Disney attraction where they allow the public to see only what they want them to.
Thomas, I am afraid that your “facts” are not fact. You state that Disney could call for a “card check” and force the union to dissolve. This is completely false. The process of throwing a union out is called decertification. It is initiated when at least 30% of the union members sign a petition calling for a decertification election. The timing of this is critical and is usually limited to a small window of time just prior to the expiration of the contract. Disney has nothing to do with it and if they were to attempt to influence the election, it is all but guaranteed that the union would file unfair labor practice complaints. After the NLRB certifies the petitions, a secret ballot election is held and if 51% of the members vote against the union, it is decertified.
All that being said, some of your other points are partially valid, in that Disney, like most companies with a union, has learned to manage to the contract. While I have not read the language of the proposed changes, my guess is that most of them either eliminate inefficiency or reduce management’s headaches, thus improving productivity.
I think that, as Tom states, Disney’s proposal is recognition of the reality that they can’t get and keep good CMs at $10 and competition is forcing them to pay more. My expectation is that the contract will be overwhelmingly accepted.
Interesting use of Progressive terms such as “Living wage”, Employers offer “poverty level wages”. Collectivism, unionism, Bolshevism, socialism, Progressivism all the same talking points to try to force control over Free-Market economy. In my opinion ( which most assuredly will get “shouted down by those well trained by the “ism” philosophies, became they only are tolerant of opinions that fit their agenda!” Unions damage Incentives to improve and become more effective, more efficient and productive. They manipulate the labor market and most assuredly push the artificial increase in labor cost onto the consumer in the form of higher prices. Incidentally Walt Disney despised Unions and scorned their communist roots. Just my opinion.
I believe in Capitalism, but something has happened which has given far too much power to an effective Plutocracy, which pours ever more cash into our political process, which sways laws even further toward allowing more and more corporate greed. And it is justified by blaming the “takers” and “lazy” low-skill laborers. But taking that facile “blaming” stance doesn’t address the root causes of income inequality, even though it might make someone feel better to blame the “lazy” other rather than examine the systemic structures that create wealth and poverty.
This isn’t a philosophy or -ism. It is what is happening in our communities, our lives – right now.
How much wealth concentrated to the top 10% or 5% or 1% is too much? Right now, 42 PEOPLE own as much wealth in the world as the poorest 3.7 BILLION people in the world. And that trend is getting worse every year. In the US, the same growing gap is happening, at an alarming pace. Just google it . . .
So where is the threshold where this inequity is unacceptable??? Is it when 1% of people own 90% of all the wealth? Or 95%? Or 99%? Surely even you would agree that extreme wealth and income inequality are not a good thing. Every person outside the wealthy few would effectively become a slave to the wealth-holders.
Ultimately, I think we need to ask ourselves what kind of society we want to live in. Is it one where we recognize the common humanity and dignity in every human being, and pay a living wage for all “low skill” (but essential) jobs as a starting point?
I believe in Capitalism, but it must have checks and balances. And the market is not always the best, most efficient determiner; sometimes, the system/market is rigged, and it has been rigged to favor the wealthy for quite some time now. This path is not sustainable. It will end badly if we continue to follow it, unless we can all step back and look at the bigger picture of what kind of world we want to hand to our children and grandchildren.
I agree with you 100%. Thanks for posting this. I’m sure you gave careful consideration before weighing in on this one. I have one friend who boycotts Disney because of their unfair wages and employees living in poverty. While I don’t boycott, I do tip heavily. I’m sure housekeeping is expected to clean up some of the worst of messes. They deserve every dime I can pry out of my wallet.
Wow! I had no idea that WDW cast members had a union! Good for them and I sympathize with them while they negotiate with a GREEDY company! I was a fast food restaurant general manager for 23 years. While managers made a decent living wage, the hourly workers all made minimum wage with no benefits and most worked several jobs and still couldn’t make ends meet. It’s horrible!
At 40, I finally quit the restaurant business and got a good paying union job at a factory in the auto industry. That was 20 years ago and I’ve never regretted that decision. Finally, I was paid overtime for any hours over 40, double time on Sundays and triple time on Holidays! Although our health insurance has gotten worse over the years…it’s still affordable.
Since I am now 60 years old with grandchildren (still working), we are now saving and planning for multiple trips to Disney. We took the oldest for a week in 2016 and now saving for our next trip. Some of the comments here really piss me off! I had no idea the cast members were so underpaid! During our week there we were in contact with many many cast members who went WAY out of their way to be helpful, courteous and all around “awesome”! And this was the week of Hurricane Matthew…so they were under extra stress as everyone there tried to adjust our Fast Passes, ADR’S and hotel reservations.
ALL WENT ABOVE AND BEYOND….and I am shocked and appalled to hear how underpaid they all are. And let’s face it…the prices are going to increase every year regardless. I would gladly pay a little more for their wage increases but we all know that they will never see it. It will go into the company’s greedy little hands!
Okay, that’s enough ranting about something I can’t change but I will finish with a few more choice words…WORKING IN THAT FLORIDA SUMMER HEAT,!! I don’t know how they do it. They deserve a $10 raise for that reason alone!
So to my Disney friends….stand strong! Your union brothers and sisters are with you! We have your backs! It makes me want to travel from Kentucky to help you on your picket line…because striking is the only thing greedy corporations understand. Walk out and shut those rides down for a few hours and they will meet your demands immediately!
Wow! I would buy tickets to see THAT show…lol…
Thank you for understanding the plight of the Disney cast members and what they have to encounter during their work! These cast members put up with a lot of abuse for things they cannot control. Many of them have safety critical roles where it is imperative the guests follow directions. Some guests do become belligerent and can get pretty nasty.Cast members love their jobs and sincerely want the quests to have an unforgettable vacation. #momof2greatcastmembers#WDW
Tom – You make it sound like ONLY Disney is trying to get over on the union by giving money for reduced protections. This is a common practice in ANY union contract negotiation. From changing wording to cutting out entire parts it is what all management does when negotiating. As a former union worker I have seen people almost give away college reimbursement and workers comp insurance simple because most do not use it. I have seen people allow wording to be changed were a single word means the difference between needing a doctors note for a single absence lasting 5 or more days to a note after 5 sick days in any given year.
As for not being able to fill positions no one wants those positions because they do not advance most peoples careers. These are not jobs leading to good paying careers but lower level job categories which 1 out of a dozen or so may make it to team leader or manager. Both Disney and the workers need to realize that the job skills needed are only worth so much. Disney would do better to offer something others aren’t instead of just money. Free or low cost healthcare and good 401k/pensions go along way to getting people to apply.
I’m all for Disney cast members earning a fair income, but I don’t see how across-the-board, guaranteed pay raises encourage better job performance. I mean, if you’re getting the higher pay rate and the same guaranteed increase as all the other cast members, what’s the incentive to deliver above-average service? It seems unfair that the employees who phone it in should make as much as those who make the effort to actually enhance the customer experience. Obviously Disney needs to step up its starting rate to attract enough help, but as far as increases go, we’d all end up with a better experience if better performing cast members got higher pay increases.
Bullshit! We were there for a week and only ran into ONE person who did not go ABOVE AND BEYOND….and she was a manager! Clearly well paid but she got snippy with me when I was inquiring about their plans to reimburse for MNSSHP when they closed for Hurricane Matthew. ONE PERSON out of hundreds. I did make a complaint and several people from Disney called me to apologize! Im guessing that any cast member who “calls it in” doesn’t work there very long!
As a past cast member I can tell you that Disney does not give any incentive to do better than to be able to keep your job. You do not get more pay for worker harder, you do not get more vacation, better hours, etc. You get whatever everyone else at your level gets. I could do the work of 3 people because of call-ins one day and I’m not going to even get a thank you most days. You call it in? You probably get written up, reprimanded, or your employment terminated. I’ve seen people terminated for less. That was the only thing keeping some CMs from completely blowing off their responsibilities. You don’t make enough as a front line CM to live by yourself. If you have a family to feed, forget it! And even if you come in, get positive guest reviews every day, and never do ANYTHING wrong….you will still make the same as the person next to you regardless of their effort. So until they begin wages based on performance in general than the only thing they can do is pay increases across the board. And they will NEVER do performance based wage increases. There’s just too many employees….we’re more numbers than people at that point. I’m not bashing Disney, I’m actually trying to find a way to move back to FL and work for them again. However I am now a single mother and would have to live with at least 2 other roommates to afford rent, utilities, food, and daycare for my son on a typical Disney CM salary.
Nicki, I’m afraid that with a union contract across the board increases are the only realistic option. I certainly agree that “pay for performance” or bonuses for going above and beyond would be nice, but they would be almost impossible to administer and would probably create more issues in terms of complaints and grievances than they solved. Unions, by design, set a bottom for performance, not a top, and while the bottom at Disney is quite high, there aren’t any rewards for going above and beyond other than the satisfaction of providing a memorable experience for the guests. Fortunately, many cast members do that as a matter of course.
I have significantly cut back my visits to WDW due to this issue. I am a Disney adult through and through but can’t stomach throwing support behind a company that is giving hundreds of millions in CEO bonuses and yet lets the huge majority of its workers get by on nothing. This is also hard to stomach seeing how much ticket and hotel costs have gone up and yet none of this is passed down to the workers. I used to balk at the price of Starbucks coffee over similar drinks at McDonalds and would often go out of my way not to go to Starbucks. Then I realized that Starbucks gives decent healthcare, paid vacation, a 401k match to all of it’s employees that work more than 20 hours. Now I don’t avoid going to starbucks for coffee since they are passing that money onto its workers in the form of wages and benefits. The same would be true of WDW. Last year we went 5 times (we live in Florida) and this year I am trying to only go once for my Daughters Birthday because she asks about the “castle” all the time. I would probably be a season pass holder and wouldn’t think twice about going 5 times again this year if I thought the company was actually taking care of its people.
Tom, One other quick thought on this subject that might help explain some of what is going on. Some folks may not be aware that Florida is a right to work state and therefore while the union technically represents any CM in a certain job classification, they are not all dues paying members. I would be surprised if even half of the CMs in those positions actually are union members. Therefore, the union’s leverage is considerably reduced since a strike, while possible and certainly disruptive, would only involve union members. This explains why the negotiations have stretched out over such long period.
So funny, I’ve had the same thoughts about working at WDW in my retirement!
I have been getting more & more disenchanted with WDW & the sky rocketing costs. This is new info to me about the low cast wages. How could even a single person support themselves on that tiny salary? For sure they couldn’t afford to go to WDW!! I’m appalled!
Of course Disney wants to break the unions. Then they can make working conditions worse for these people. Terrible!
Agreed! I work in the auto industry. A proud UNION member. Ford is known for being a good job because of the great wages and benefits. Know why? Because Henry Ford famously said that he wanted to pay his workers enough that they could afford to buy a Ford vehicle.
At the Ford plant in Louisville, Kentucky, the employee parking lot is FULL of late model Ford cars and trucks. It’s a great business model that Disney could learn from!
Low wages for Disney employees has bothered me for some time. Disney is very careful to cultivate its brand – pro-family, wholesome, fun. It has even taken social positions at times, and been progressive in it’s re-imagining of storylines to be more inclusive of women and people of color. A “realistic” yet strong female protagonist in Moana. Rey as a Jedi. Maleficent and many more . . . Consciously moving away from the beloved, though sometimes wretch-worthy, gender and racial stereotypes of the past.
I love it, and Disney understands that inclusion is the future.
But with America’s income/wealth gap between rich and poor growing more by the year, and the middle class shrinking, it has bothered me that the Disney I love doesn’t practice more “pro-family” values and PAY it’s employees a living wage. If Disney employees are members of its family, it has always seemed wicked-step-mother-stingy and Scrooge-McDuck-mean to pay them as little as possible – AS A BUSINESS PRACTICE – while making gobs of money for stock owners and executives.
Yes, I know that many businesses run this way, but Disney can set the standard here and WILLINGLY pay decent wages to all of its employees, and truly, authentically embody the brand-image it wants to project.
Society is changing, people are demanding authenticity; so companies can’t say they’re all about gooey family goodness, while actively undermining them through under-paying them.
Come on Disney, you’re better than this! Please do better.
I find your reply well said. Disney does brand “family & family values”. They should take care of their own & set the standard for the rest. Those cast members are what makes the experience. Even if they have all the rides & attractions, it just wouldn’t be the same!
It’s funny that people think of the cast members as low income or teenagers. My husband & I love Disney so much we have actually thought about moving to Orlando & applying at Disney for the fun & joy if it after we retire from our Government jobs.
Agreed, Jennifer. Well said!
Amen Sister!