Will Disneylanders return to the picket lines next week?
Just ask any Disneylander—the real old-time Disneylanders who measure their tenure in decades instead of years or—as is increasingly common today—in months. They look back on September 1984 as the month when Disneyland “died.” It’s the time that reportedly brought former parks chief Dick Nunis (the toughest of the Disney tough guys yet a hard-core traditionalist) to tears.
It’s the dividing line between two eras: Before Strike and After Strike. It’s when for 22 days more than 1,000 cast members from Attractions, Foods, Merchandise and Custodial walked a picket line in front of the Happiest Place on Earth. Thousands of their co-workers crossed their ranks, and what was once one big, happy family was irrevocably torn in two.
For the picketers, the 1984 strike wasn’t really about money. They were primarily fighting to retain a generous benefits packages that gave them full benefits for part-time work. Hundreds of cast members, many with successful careers in the real world, had remained hourly Disneylanders long past their college years, to hold on to their medical coverage. And now Disneyland wanted to take it away.
Many of the strikers thought management was just posturing; surely Walt’s trusted lieutenants were never let his “family” strike. In fact, when cast members finally did grab their picket signs (illustrated with indignant Walts and misty-eyed mice), their protest looked like a big party. But Disney, focused on reducing its over-priced roster of benefits recipients, was playing hardball.
Battered, the picketers finally returned to work. They agreed to a contract that wasn’t much different from what Disney had offered three weeks before. The old-timers did protect their own benefits for working 16 hours a week, but consented to force new hires to turn in at least 25 hours for those same benefits. What they didn’t realize was this suddenly put a bounty on the head of every veteran part-timer. Management made quick work of driving out as many of these expensive old-timers as possible.
The net result: Disneyland today is a land of transitory part-timers. Experience is no longer a cherished tradition; it’s a curiosity.
Here we are 22 years later, with a contract set to expire March 15 for about 4,600 workers from multiple departments (Attractions, Main Gate, Custodial, Merchandise, Guest Relations, Costuming, Parking and Transportation). And, what do you know, Disney again wants to alter its two-tier benefits structure. Now, instead of 25 hours, employees will have to work at least 30 hours to merit benefits. Existing employees at the 25-hour-level will be “grandfathered” into the new system and provided with 30 hours. New hires must work their way up to that level, usually a years-long process.
And, for the first time in 22 years, cast members seem to be seriously considering the possiblity of a strike. “Of all the years I have worked, the atmosphere is ripe for a cast member strike,” said one 15-year veteran.
One ride operator shared, “Over the past few months I have asked some of my fellow cast members if they would strike, and the majority of them said that they would at least for a few days. The feasibility of this, of course, is debatable. I believe we need three votes to go on strike and a non-vote counts as a no vote, meaning all of the college kids who don’t give a da[r]n about the old-timers could be lazy and not vote, which would make for a non-strike.”
Although the benefits change is by far the biggest sticking point in the contract negotiations, there’s also the proposed merger of the two parks’ workforces. Disneyland employees don’t seem to be crazy about the prospect of being “banished” to Disney’s California Adventure (DCA) park. DCA workers, where those with five years of service can say they’ve been around since Opening Day, are afraid their seniority (and resultant scheduling preferences) will suffer when pitted against workers who conceivably could have up to 50 years under their belts.
“DCA and Disneyland now are two separate places,” said one DCA custodian. “The joining of the two sides would be a disaster for all cast members. Someone who has been at DCA since its opening would be back as if they had just hired on. The cast members who I have talked to do not want this, so we all signed a petition to stop it. We don’t want the Disneyland people in California Adventure and vice versa. I have heard that if this joining happens, we will go on strike.”
A Disneyland manager admitted seniority could be a minor concern, but thought the effect would be minimal, even for our hypothetical “old-timers” at DCA. “If,” he explained, “that person has anything more than four or five years seniority, it really becomes a moot issue. There simply aren’t enough old-timers left to use up all of the available vacation days for Christmas or Thanksgiving. Anyone with four or more years of seniority is going to get pretty much what they want when it comes to scheduling, regardless of which contract they work within.”
The limited experience of the average cast member also accounts for the fear and loathing towards the recent upsurge in salaried Team Disney Anaheim employees suddenly training on attractions and in other departments. Newcomers fail to realize this has been common practice for Disney during decades of contract negotiations. Management wants to be prepared if union members do walk out, and to send a clear message that they’ll get along just fine without them.
Hourlies are still taking it personally. “While Cross-U’s (cross-utilization) may have been done before, it is like spitting in the cast members’ faces,” said one ride operator. “Bottom line, if a few lines of business go on strike I can guarantee that Disney would be screwed in a week or less. With two parks, they couldn’t possibly fill all of the shifts necessary to run the attractions safely. Even factoring scabs and Cross U’s, the park would be devastated. Things like shutting down DCA wouldn’t help attractions out, because each cast member is legally signed off by DOSH to operate a ride—who would train them? Training on E-tickets can last up to five days.”
According to management, most of the tough talk about a strike is not coming from the hourlies, but from union representatives and out-of-touch shop stewards. “The union leadership really does look to be angling for a strike,” admitted one manager. “The sad part is that the leadership is woefully out of touch with the rank-and-file ‘members’ they represent. I hang out with and talk to these cast members daily, and there is simply no appetite for a strike from the vast majority of the Attractions cast members. What is worse is that the union has done almost nothing to communicate to their members why they should be indignant enough to consider a strike. No one seems to know any of the issues on the table because the union just isn’t communicating with the rank and file.”
Managers report having cast members constantly come up to them and ask, “If the union strikes do I really have to do it? Can’t I just come to work anyway?”
“This is one of the most bizarre things I’ve seen in all my years at Disneyland,” the manager continued. “It’s just almost surreal that the union leadership thinks this is a viable option for them. It’s still kind of unclear as the negotiations have just started this week. But for now, it looks like the union really wants to go down the road towards a strike in mid-March. Strange, but true. And I think it will be disastrous for the union and really undermine what little credibility they have with the average hourly cast member of 2006. This isn’t 1984 when most cast members had a decade or more of tenure at stake; most of the current cast members paying union dues have ‘2005’ or ‘2006’ on their nametag, with anyone from 2004 or ’03 considered an ‘old-timer’ now.”
Interestingly, attendance patterns have also changed in the last 20 years. Disneyland would have pulled in 10,000, maybe 20,000 guests tops on a September day in 1984. Here in March 2006, Disney now operates two parks and has, in a sense, “pre-sold” tickets to hundreds of thousands of annual passholders. And AP’ers are the type of guests who, already having paid for their admission, are more likely to cross a picket line, but less likely to spend a lot of money once inside. Fewer facilities will operate, all at reduced capacity. Lines outside them should grow to nightmarish lengths. All the while, income could plummet.
Officially, Disneyland Resort spokesman Bob Tucker would only say, “We are optimistic and look forward to successful discussions with the Master Services group.”
In the end, in the unlikely event that cast members do approve a strike, it’ll probably be more as a vote of general displeasure rather than having anything to do with the contract. Let’s face it. Most hourlies aren’t working at Disneyland to make as much money as possible. If it were primarily about the paycheck, there are plenty of higher-paying, less-demanding positions outside the Magic Kingdom.
Your typical cast member hired on, most importantly, for the experience of working at Disneyland, and—for many—that experience has deteriorated over the past several years. They may realize that by going out on strike they have less to lose than ever before. Perhaps they’ll vote down the new contract as a protest, or out of spite.
“With or without a strike, employee relations is on a downward spiral,” sighed an attractions host. “Right now, either way, many old-timers are planning on either retiring or finding other work. This is sad, of course, since the people who are dedicated to the company and making the magic will be leaving the company after 15+ years of service. They are tired of management changes and the low morale. All in all, I think that Matt Ouimet has been great for the guest and level of park attractiveness, but has been screwing over employees left and right. Of course this might not be him directly, but it is happening under his regime. I hope that things can turn around and he won’t go down as being the one who turned Disneyland into a Six Flags on the level of its employees. Cast members are what make Disneyland Disneyland. Everyone has, of course, seen a decline in the quality of employees and expect this to keep declining. The majority of college students don’t even know who Walt Disney was.”
Last Raft Out
As of last month, the Tom Sawyer, reportedly the last original raft from Walt’s day, has been retired from ferrying guests to the island. The new rafts, the Huck Finn and the Joe Harper, are significantly larger, heavier, and feature higher railings.
The larger vessels have allowed Disneyland to change its old “two-raft” requirement; it can now leave the island open even with a single raft running. A few cast members, though, are questioning the change, since they thought the old two-raft minimum was a safety requirement in case the island needed to be evacuated.
Employees Get Clocked
Expect more timeclocks to begin springing up in workstations throughout the resort (see “Time Bandits” for details). One cast member said the first weekend under the new system “was marked with anger, frustration, and confusion. Some of the clocks were not working, and managers were already threatening cast members for not following the rules.”
He reported that a tussle broke out at a timeclock at the Inn Between the weekend before last. Supposedly, he said, “a large group of cast members was waiting to clock in from lunch, one cast member shoved another, and you can guess what happened after that. The Inn Between has only two clocks, but there is always a line to use them because it is the main cast member eating area, and the cast members of the Inn Between, Plaza Inn, and Guest First Aid also use it as their ‘designated’ clock to clock in for work.”
Ride operators are at least one group that seems to have taken the new system in stride. “This really has virtually no effect on Attractions except we are going to make sure that we get our breaks evenly spaced out,” said one host. “Other details of the program appear to be good as well. This is really shaking up other departments that don’t use CDS. I was worried that we were going to have to do double in and out on CDS. This overall is a good change making everyone accountable for their breaks.”
