I'd believe it... hell, it's happened to me. Disney breaks a LOT of labor laws, I think. I saw it a lot more when I worked ini merchandise and was subjected to the CDS (Cast Deployment System).
For those who don't know how the CDS works, youo go to a computer at your work area and enter your ID number (I have another bone to pick about that in particular, but that's a whole nother story), and the computer gives you a little receipt printout that tells you where to go work in your area, who to break, etc. Now, it's supposed to be timed so that breaks work out so be every 2-3 hours. Very reasonable. However, if one person comes late, it starts kind of a chain reaction that slows down everyone's breaks. And if more than one person gets delayed in trying to sign in... well, it all snowballs from there.
We were told during training to notify a manager if we hadn't gotten a break in over 3 hours. However, in practice, any time that happened, we were always told, "Oh, your break is coming, we're just a bit behind." So we'd wait. Well upwards of 4 hours on a regular basis. And in merchandise, you can't leave the area around your register unless there's someone who can watch it for you while you're gone. So on really busy days when all the stockers were busy and everyone was at a register... you were screwed if you had to go to the bathroom. You got to cross your legs and do a little dance.
As for not drinking water... well, that causes them even more problems! When I worked Glow, and we were out in the Hub selling squeeze breezes, we had to stand in the sun in the middle of the street. The line of thought was who would buy a mister fan from someone standing in the shade? And since we usually had to work around parade schedules, that often meaent standing in hte middle of the street for 4 hours at a time, in the middle of the summer heat. And yes, I had been told by a few managers that I could not bring a water bottle of any kind out with me, even if I removed the label. So basically, standing in the middle of the summer heat for 4 hours with no water and no breaks. And yes, someone passed out doing it.
Now, my real horror story is from Chrismas Day 2002. I was supposed to be a floor stocker, meaning I made sure everyone had change, filled in the holes where merchandise had been bought, gave people breaks if needed, etc. So I was sent up to Bwana Bob's to break someone in the evening. It was getting dark, and chilly, but I figure it's no big deal cause I'd only be there a half hour. Half hour came and went... and hour... two... at this point I'm FREEZING (someone had taken away the heater that was there). After three hours I start trying to call managers to see where the person is that I had given a break to. No response to ANY of my pages. Over five hours later, a manager finally walked by and I was able to flag them down. At that point, my body was almost completely numb (it was really cold that night, especially just standing there waiting). I finally got down to the break room and was so cold I couldn't stop shaking for the whole half hour. As it turns out, CDS had struck again. Since I was supposed to be floor stocker, the computer had thought I was taking my breaks whenever it worked out, and so hadn't scheduled me for ANY. And no one caught that error (understandable, since it was busy) and no one even responded to me when I tried to contact anyone. Five hours, standing out in the freezing cold, no breaks.
-Kirsten
