Your magic wishes may be on pause for a little bit. Mickey and Minnie are hitting the picket line.
About 1,700 Disneyland characters and parade performers announced their plan to unionize on Tuesday.
Jonathan Handel, an entertainment and tech attorney and Lecturer in Law at the USC Gould School of Law, explains that the way the characters look is not always how they really feel.
Jonathan Handel: Well, it’s important to remember that although the characters look like they’re always smiling, work is work. And the work that these character actors, these actor characters do with us, the word for it is difficult work, they are not paid a lot.
Now calling themselves “Magic United,” the cast members began distributing union authorization cards to those who are not under a union. They plan to seek voluntary recognition from Disney Resort Entertainment once a majority of their workers have signed.
Handel: And if they’re not voluntarily recognized by management by Disney, then the National Labor Relations Board conducts a representation election where all of the people who would be within the union group, the so-called bargaining unit, have the right and the opportunity to vote on whether they want to be represented by a union or not.
More than 35,000 workers at the Disneyland Resort are already a part of labor unions, but the character and parade performers, also known as cast members, are not under any union at all.
Handel: Well, unions in effect are non-governmental regulatory agencies, they set wages and working conditions and related issues above where the marketplace may be driving them.
These workers have a number of demands that they want Disney to meet to create a better work environment for their cast members. These are their demands.
Handel: what we’re hearing is, is three issues, wages, number one, scheduling, number two, in terms of flexibility and, and respect for people’s, you know, time and, and advanced notice of schedule changes and things of that sort. And then finally, safe and sanitary working conditions.
The hope is that unionizing will help lead to a more productive conversation between the company and its workers.
Disney provided the following statement: “We believe that our Cast Members deserve to have all the facts and the right to a confidential vote that recognizes their individual choices.”