Disney World Workers Poised To Reject Contract Offer

On Thursday and Friday this week, about 32,000 Disney employees will be voting on a contract offer.

Photo Insert: The company’s five-year offer would raise salaries for cast members by a minimum of $1 an hour per year, taking most workers to at least $20 an hour by 2026, which is $5 an hour more than the Florida minimum wage.

These workers do everything from performing as characters to working in restaurants and shops, driving buses, trams and monorails as well as working at front desks and performing housekeeping duties at hotels, Chris Isidore and Vanessa Yurkevich reported for CNN Business.

Those working under this contract, all of them full-time employees, represent more than 40% of all workers at Disney World.

The park has 75,000 cast members, as the company refers to its employees, including full-time and part-time, hourly, and salaried staff. It is comparable to Disney World’s pre-pandemic employment levels.

The company’s five-year offer would raise salaries for cast members by a minimum of $1 an hour per year, taking most workers to at least $20 an hour by 2026. That would be $5 an hour more than the Florida minimum wage, which is in the process of being increased from the current $11 an hour to $15 an hour by 2026.

The company said 46% of cast members will get more than a $1-an-hour raise in the contract’s first year.

But union leadership is urging members to vote no. The unions say Disney presented this as its best offer and that is why it’s going to membership for a vote – not because there is a tentative agreement, which is the point at which an offer normally goes to rank-and-file union members for a vote. And this time around, all indications are that the company’s offer will be rejected.

The six union locals working under the current contract want an immediate $3 an hour raise, or a 20% raise, for what it says is 75% of the members currently making $15 an hour, plus an additional $1 an hour raise every year after that.

“The unions have been clear from our very first bargaining session that a dollar in the first year is not enough,” said Matt Hollis, president of the Service Trades Council Union, the collection of six union locals that are negotiating with Disney management.

“A dollar does not afford Disney workers with the ability to keep up with the skyrocketing rent increases. And a dollar does not afford Disney workers with the ability to continue to purchase basic necessities, such as food, gas and utilities.”

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