Disneyland workers say they live in cars and motels due to low pay
Disneyland workers say they live in cars and motels due to low pay
Workers at Disneyland are considering a strike because pay at the 'Happiest place on Earth' has left many unable to meet rent.
Cynthia “Cyn” Carranza meticulously scavenged for a shady parking spot in the car she called home.
The overnight custodian at Disneyland has to sleep during the day - a difficulty for anyone, let alone when you're living in your car with two dogs. Ms Carranza says she makes $20.65 an hour (about £15.99) at the park but last summer, she couldn't afford rent in this Southern California city where the average apartment can run more than $2,000 (about £1,550) a month.
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Ms Carranza, like others who work at the park, detailed to the BBC the financial hardships that come with working at what’s supposed to be the “Happiest Place on Earth”. About 10,000 union workers at Disneyland - the first of 12 parks created around the globe - are threatening to strike over the wages and what they say are retaliatory anti-union practices.
Hundreds of workers protested outside the park this week, with an array of signs and pins showing Mickey Mouse's gloved fist in defiance.
“Mickey would want fair pay,” workers chanted outside Disneyland near the park's gates.
They voted almost unanimously to authorise strike action on Friday, just days before union contract negotiations for workers are set to resume.
As a former Disney cast member, I wholly support this protest and I truly hope they strike.
In worked from 2008-2016 and started at $9.05/hr. We got 2% a year in raises, but in that time new hires would start at higher wages and they wouldn't match the employees who had been there to the new employees wage. Brand new employees would make more than those that had been there years.
When Anaheim had a ballet measure to raise the minimum wage they raised a ton of cast members wages to $3 less than the measure in hopes they could discourage people to vote for it. Fortunately, the measure passed. However, during this period they didn't retain the yearly raises, everyone was raised to the exact same wage. Those who had been there 30 years (no exaggeration) made exactly the same as new hires.
They've gotten hostile to their employees and the "perks" that employees for have been slowly stripped away. Each year getting slightly worse. Which is a problem because new hires don't know how much better it used to be so they don't know what to demand anymore.
I knew cast members that used to live 6 or 8 people to a two bedroom apartment. Most worked multiple jobs. Many of the entertainers who play as the characters ended up injured from wearing the Mickey and other character costumes. Multiple who had to have surgery to treat those injuries.
They have let standards fall, hard. The parks aren't what they used to be and literally the only thing keeping them together is the cast. They try so fucking hard to bring the magic to guests each and every day. They have been kneecapped by management though. IMO, of all "attractions" at the parks, the cast are the best. And the one that management should be investing in the most. They are the differentiator between Disney and Knott's Berry Farm, Universal Studios, and Six Flags. However leadership has constantly worked to move interactions from Cast Members to their half baked app.
Understand that all these cast members do it because they love bringing the magic to the guests. They endure shitty pay, shitty management, and injury for the guests. They care so much about making the public and tourists happy. They deserve so much more.
Ms Carranza says she makes $20.65 an hour
Makes sense. They couldn't afford to pay her more.
Disney Parks has just released its fourth quarter and full-year earnings, posting a record $32.5 billion in revenue for fiscal 2023, which ended September 30, 2023.
https://blogmickey.com/2023/11/disney-parks-posts-record-32-5-billion-revenue-in-2023/
Disney has a market cap or net worth of $174.83 billion as of July 19, 2024. Its market cap has increased by 5.72% in one year.
big corporation under-pays workers, absolute shocker.
Don't worry front line workers. The C-Suite and the shareholders appreciate your sacrifice to allow them to make more money.
This is was workers need to strike and form unions.
There are so many seasonal tourist businesses in the US. Many of these places are either very remote or extremely popular. These businesses need seasonal workers for 3-8 months. The vast majority require housing.
Many of these businesses provide. The smaller ones may have a room or cabin. Larger ones may have salvage travel trailers and shanty apartments. In remote places the only store nearby is the company store. If a worker's vehicle breaks they're effectively trapped.
Back to the 1800s, I guess.
this is becoming normal for most in the US
hardly anyone here makes over $20 an hour and it shows that people are unable to afford to go to work due to subpar pay
know a plumbing business in our area that pays its employees less than $15 an hour and that is considered good pay in this area with housing and food as high as the rest of the country
and the US has not had a proworker president ever
Biden threatened the last workers to protest for better with the threat of losing their livelihoods
cost of vehicle ownership is astronomical these days how could anyone in the US afford both housing and a vehicle with average US pay
know people skipping insurance and registration fees due to low pay and high cost
all this has to come to a head at some point
going to a grocery store that is not fully stocked and only the self-checkouts are open because the pay is so low no one can afford to work is more than normal now in the US
thanks Trump and Biden for making the US a better place for the elites