The Mary Sue: In recent years, unionization has taken hold at the Magic Kingdom in a piecemeal way. Various employee divisions have successfully joined unions to ensure competitive pay and various workplace protections. The latest cohort of Disneyland employees to unionize are the cast members who suit up each day to bring beloved Disney characters to life.
2 comments:
I am really interested in seeing what effects this unionization could have on how the theme park operates. I support the people trying to unionize, and I believe that they have reason to do so, and that you can never have too much solidarity, especially in the world of entertainment where it can be so easy to want to cut corners of personal well-being in order to make a deadline. I am eager to see where the vote to unionize ends up, and what the details of that unionization entail in terms of who is covered. I wonder if they will have to individually decide for each character, or if there will be broad strokes, or what. I think that last year’s SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes really helped demonstrate the potential power of unions in the entertainment industry, and it’s been really interesting to see all of the new discussions and new unions forming in the industry possibly as a result.
If I am being 100% honest, I would have fully thought that the performers in the parades were unionized. I mean I didn’t think they were unionized with Actors Equity Association, but I definitely thought they were unionized. In the article it said that the cast members were unionized with Teamsters in the 1980s which brings up additional questions. Are they still unionized with them and are they leaving, and if so why are they leaving? Or had they left long ago and if so why? Or am I completely misunderstanding what was being said and it wasn’t the cast members that were unionized with Teamsters? I have a lot of questions. Questions that probably do not have a simple straight forward answer and if they did, I am sure their lawyers would advise against saying it. Overall, I am glad to hear that the Disney Cast Members have formed Magic United and that they are trying to become Equity, that is awesome!
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