s8film40
Well-Known Member
It's not enough to just be salaried you have to meet the exemption criteria, many employers don't pay overtime when they should be paying.
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Contract Divides Disney Workers
- Thread starter Alektronic
- Start date
It's not enough to just be salaried you have to meet the exemption criteria, many employers don't pay overtime when they should be paying.
Phonedave
Well-Known Member
Trust me, I am exempted.
At one time I was exempt because I managed 8 other people.
Now I am exempt because of professional job duties - to wit "engineers (who have engineering degrees or the equivalent and perform work of the sort usually performed by licensed professional engineers),"
In my 'professional carreer' (anything post undergraduate) I have been in a union, supervised union member, and been in entirely non-union shops. The only time I have ever seen a union be useful is in the cases of when a particular INDIVIDUAL manager had a vendetta against a particular union member. As far as blanket policy was concerned, all they serve to do is wring money out of the workers in the form of dues, make a select few union managment well off, and have a vested interest in fostering animosity between workers and management,
-dave
Phonedave
Well-Known Member
While I have not sat on negotiations boards, I have represented the company on arbitration hearings.
Thats not really a 'level' thing. I 'outrank' some of the Management on negotiations teams - in both Title and Salary Band. Just as they would not make good Network Engineers, I would not make a good contract negotiator. Different training and backgrounds.
-dave
disneyrcks
Well-Known Member
It's crazy....my best friends husband started as a manager for ConEd (NYC area's elec and gas). He HATED IT! His workers drank on the job, slacked off on the job and mouthed off on the job and his hands were tied because they were union. However I worked for a company in NJ and I worked with an extremely difficult population. We were union and while I had my differences with being union( ie difficult, poor workers got to stay) We were the highest paid "mental health workers" in the area due to our union negotiating our raises. While I was there we had two 3% raises that did mostly go to cover our rising health insurance costs. No not great but amazing considering the field. I am sorry that the Disney workers do not get paid well but if your raise is covering your benefits that is a big win. I worked for a company were we had to contribute half the cost of our benefits every month and that was for a freakin HMO. look, we all have to fight the good fight but if it is a fair one u have to look at it from all angles.
s8film40
Well-Known Member
Yeah I think the point was is that the people who are in a position where they can make a decision that will affect thousands of people's pay are no where close to the same pay grade themselves. Ultimately the people doing the negotiating isn't really the person who decides. Those people go back to someone else who then tells them what the company is willing to pay and how they can proceed and what they can offer with the negotiation. It has nothing to do with training to negotiate, there are people that do that for them.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
While the wages may be different, the medical benefits offered to senior executives are the exact same as what's offered to front-line hourly Cast Members. Disney offers about 8 different medical plans to choose from, from basic CIGNA administered plans that cost a single person about 7 bucks a week to deluxe 100% plans that the government would likely dub "Cadillac Plans" and that would cost a family of four 75+ dollars per week.
Any Disney Cast Member, from a Vice President to a Jungle Cruise Skipper, is free to choose any of those plans. Now, certainly, a Vice President making 175K per year likely won't worry as much about a $3 dollar per week increase in the cost of a CIGNA plan as much as that Jungle Cruise Skipper might, but the point is that there is no difference in plans offered different levels of Cast Members. It's all very egalitarian, and it's up to the individual to determine which plan they want and how much per week they should pay to secure their desired plan.
If an hourly Cast Member wants the full-tilt plan for a family of five and wants $75 bucks deducted each week, than they can choose that. Similarly, I would imagine there's some $100K+ per year salaried Cast Members who don't use or need lots of medical attention who are paying 7 bucks per week for basic CIGNA insurance and not blinking an eye.
There's no "Management" medical insurance offered only to those in corner offices. Disney is famously egalitarian in the benefits it offers to every Cast Member, from a plush TDO executive office to the gal working the churro cart in World Showcase.
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Pioneer Hall
Well-Known Member
As a reminder, please refrain from posting political items. We seem to be having a lot of threads turn to politics lately, and that is not the point of this message board.
Just repeating for emphasis. And as a warning.
Pumbas Nakasak
Heading for the great escape.
Facist
Looking at the over all big picture and the economic times that we are in, we all have to pay for medical insurance and even mine went up a bit this year. Now far as raises most companies have given out 1.5% to nothing. Honestly the fare thing to do hear is to have a contract for only for two years take the raise and pay your insurance increase like every one else. The reason I say shorter contract is due to the economy (I hope) might be on a good recovery at the time and a 6 to 7 % pay increase may not be out of the question. There are two ways to look at this, if the Union gets it's way that might Hurt Disney and layoff's will come and people that needs jobs will be unemployed. If Disney is doing great then they need to step up and up the anti on the contracts a little. Honestly for some respects I hate unions with the mentality that they should have the world given to them with no questions asked. Lastly this is for all people employed in general. You took the job and know what you are getting into along with the money & benfits. Once employed you have a few options:
1) Just do your job
2) Do your job well with the hopes of trying to get promoted
3) If you hate your job, do it right and start looking until you find something else.
4) Just up and quit (Bad Option)
5) Or do like some others and complain wine and do little as possible and make your guest miserable and eventaully get fired.
No one is forcing any one to take a job, but if you take a job, give it your best effort even if you realize your in a losing battle or in a winning situation. You have options and it all comes down to it's up to you how you act and perform and how you allow others to see you. I am greatfull for the job I am in right now. Is it perfect, no. Am I happy, most of the time yes. Is it paying the bills and feeding the family, yes. Chance for advancement yes with two to three years of hard top level performance. Raises OK, not really 1.5% but I look at it as it's better than no %. Lastly I know if I do good in my job this year that I will be and stay employed. I also feel that holds true for 2012 as well. The company is making money and I do have some nice extra perks to boot and will get a small bonus this year on top of the small increase.
1) Just do your job
2) Do your job well with the hopes of trying to get promoted
3) If you hate your job, do it right and start looking until you find something else.
4) Just up and quit (Bad Option)
5) Or do like some others and complain wine and do little as possible and make your guest miserable and eventaully get fired.
No one is forcing any one to take a job, but if you take a job, give it your best effort even if you realize your in a losing battle or in a winning situation. You have options and it all comes down to it's up to you how you act and perform and how you allow others to see you. I am greatfull for the job I am in right now. Is it perfect, no. Am I happy, most of the time yes. Is it paying the bills and feeding the family, yes. Chance for advancement yes with two to three years of hard top level performance. Raises OK, not really 1.5% but I look at it as it's better than no %. Lastly I know if I do good in my job this year that I will be and stay employed. I also feel that holds true for 2012 as well. The company is making money and I do have some nice extra perks to boot and will get a small bonus this year on top of the small increase.
MaryJaneP
Well-Known Member
As a part-time employee at a business that is staring down the barrel of a decrease in reimbursement of over 20% (thats a cut), without any health insurance offered (I pay every penny for healthcare), the guarantee of a job and raises, even with increased health premiums, for 3.5 years, seems pretty good to me.
Pumbas Nakasak
Heading for the great escape.
Why do you think the Illuminati arranged the current situation. Cant beat a subservient work force willing to take cuts in pay and conditions
If you believe that sort of thing of course.
If you believe that sort of thing of course.
BeachClubNut
New Member
They all have the right to get better jobs if they dont like whats being offered. Or strike and pay insurance through a cobra plan....... theres 50 people looking to replace each job on the unemployment line, just the cold hard sad facts.....
TP2000
Well-Known Member
There will never be a strike of front-line hourly CM's at Walt Disney World. These folks live paycheck to paycheck, the union has no strike fund to offer them beyond perhaps some food bank contacts, and they can't afford to miss a full week's paycheck let alone week after week as the strike drags on. Nevermind that thousands of CM's, facing that econcomic reality, would cross any picket line and show up to work anyway so they can pay rent and eat.
And speaking of picket lines, there's another reason why a WDW strike would be meaningless and worthless. There is no place on Disney property that they could set up a picket line that would truly impact operations or be visible to the majority of customers. They might be able to give the evil eye to arriving CM's at the backstage roads leading on to property, but they wouldn't be able to set up a picket on property in front of theme parks or hotels. The main entry points are freeway offramps anyway, as it's not like there's a sidewalk along World Drive they could protest on while staying off the property line.
A strike at WDW will never, ever happen. It's ridiculous that this union isn't taking Disney's generous offer of $550 bonuses, guranteed 3% raises and high quality comprehensive benefits. Instead they've got this theater going on that is serving absolutely no one, and only hurting the CM's the union pretends to care about so long as they send in their dues money.
Phonedave
Well-Known Member
I must not be getting my Illuminati newsletter, because I missed the announcement.
-dave
Pumbas Nakasak
Heading for the great escape.
toolsnspools
Well-Known Member
I happen to be on the contract writing side of things this year for a small workforce, and I'm in a volunteer position so I'm no expert. The average increase in costs of healthcare are ~16%. On a $15,000/yr family plan, that is about a $180/mo increase in the cost of the benefit. If the employees are only being asked to pay a portion of that increase, they have to include the rest as additional income. Based on the little that I've read about the offered contract, they need to jump on it. I only wish I could offer that kind of contract to my employees. They will be getting far less than 3% per year because we're covering most of the 16% increase to that benefit.
It isn't up to Union leadership to decide if they want to accept the contract or not. They try to negotiate the best contract for the union membersand then can recommend what to do, but it is up to the union members themselves to decide by voting on the contract. "THE" union doesn't have a say just the members.