New York
CNN
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You’ll be able to add Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy to the rising listing of staff looking for higher employment advantages.
After three days of voting final week, 1,700 Disneyland Resort solid members who play characters across the theme park in Anaheim, California, in addition to carry out at parades, voted to unionize below Actors’ Fairness Affiliation, the union announced Saturday evening.
Fairness described the vote as “a landslide victory,” with 953 solid members favoring unionization and 258 opposed.
The group had introduced a union organizing effort in February earlier than submitting for a vote with the National Labor Relations Board in April. There are greater than 21,000 Disneyland “solid member” staff, who’re represented by greater than a dozen unions. These unionized jobs embrace staff in retail, meals service, safety, pyrotechnic, and hair and make-up.
Till now, staff dressing up as iconic Disney characters like Mickey Mouse, Cinderella, Snow White and Captain Hook have been excluded.
“These staff are on the entrance traces of the Visitor expertise; they’re the human beings who create lifelong reminiscences when your youngsters hug a personality, or when your loved ones watches a parade roll by the fort,” stated Actors’ Fairness Affiliation President Kate Shindle in an announcement. “The following step will probably be to collaborate with them about bettering well being & security, wages, advantages, working situations and job safety.”
The labor relations board is anticipated to certify the outcomes subsequent week, after which contract negotiations with The Walt Disney Firm will start. Fairness stated it doesn’t understand how lengthy the bargaining course of will take, including Disney has been “comparatively cooperative all through this course of.”
“We’ve got an extended, constructive relationship with The Walt Disney Firm, each at Walt Disney World and at Disney Theatricals, and we look ahead to establishing a equally productive relationship with the Disneyland Resort,” an Fairness spokesperson advised CNN.
A Disneyland Resort spokesperson advised CNN it’s too quickly for the corporate to touch upon the unionization vote as a result of the election has but to be licensed. “Regardless of the final result, we respect that our solid members had the chance to have their voices heard,” the spokesperson stated.
On the opposite facet of the nation, Disney World character actors have been represented by Teamsters for the reason that Eighties. Greater than 400 actors, stunt performers and singers unionized below Fairness in 1990 on the theme park in Orlando, Florida. Right this moment, Fairness estimates they signify round 800 solid members at Disney World.