Theme Park University: Lately, there has been a lot of talk about the wage negotiations between Walt Disney World and the unions that represent them. For those keeping track, Walt Disney World cast members rejected the company’s last deal in December of 2017. That wage increase would have been roughly $.50 cents more an hour for most employees. Since then, the question has been raised several times: why don’t Walt Disney World cast members strike?
3 comments:
I am in no way a political science or history expert, but I feel like in this instance, history is on the side of the unsatisfied Disney cast members. Sure, if every cast member decided to go on strike, Disney COULD fire every one of them. But I feel like that would result in more negative publicity than they would want to risk. I know that before reading this article, I had no idea that Disney cast members were unhappy with their wages. If I had read that Disney fired most of their cast over wage dispute, I would see it as a scandal. Then comes the aftermath: Disney would lose tens of thousands of dollars every day; they cannot run a park with no cast members, and the time it would take to find an entirely new cast would lose them tens of thousands of dollars more. So in this instance, I feel like the cast member hold a certain bargaining power over Disney. At some point, some side has to make some concessions, and I think it is going to be Disney.
As someone from Orlando, I always joke that Disney owns us all. Though this is a joke, there is some truth behind it as Disney controls our copy rights laws as well as many corporations that we are unaware is under disney. I find it appalling that cast members have no outlet to express their dissatisfaction with their work place. But, unfortunately, I do not find it surprising. Everyone that I know that works at Disney have always told me about their strict regulations and I have always found it ridiculous. I don't understand how we have allowed one company to dominate so much of our lives. Though, ideally, I think that the cast members should strike anyway because, as Sydney says, they cannot fire everyone. However, Disney is a very powerful company with a lot of employees so I don't know how realistic it is to think that all cast members can be rallied to create a big enough impact. Though I would be very pleasantly surprised if a strike is successful.
I feel like this is just one of the possible many secrets Disney keeps from its consumers. I am not a huge Disney fan, mostly because Disney is a huge, powerful, scary corporation who makes it their job to brainwash people of all ages into obsessing over their products. That might sound a little extreme, but that is what I fully believe. Disney has created a facade of a happy dreamland for people to enjoy, never showing the inner workings of what is going on on a deeper level. I have heard from people previously employed at Disney that, whenever they are around guests, they must have a permanent smile on their face. If that does not freak you out, I do not know what will. If they are going to put their employees through that much, they better be paying them well. The Disney workers need to pull a “Newsies” on Disney- the parks cannot run without them. They deserve great pay from this insanely wealthy corporation.
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