News Disney World Cast Member unions to begin week of negotiations for wage increases, healthcare costs and more

[WDWFanRay]

Raise the pay from $15 an hour to
$18 an hour and then layoff 7000 employees.

So what’s better? 7000 more people employed or the remaining ones making more money? I’m sure that many of the 7000 let go workers would probably be happy to still have their $15 an hour. Half of something is better than all of nothing.

 

[MagicHappens1971]

Raise the pay from $15 an hour to
$18 an hour and then layoff 7000 employees.

So what’s better? 7000 more people employed or the remaining ones making more money? I’m sure that many of the 7000 let go workers would probably be happy to still have their $15 an hour. Half of something is better than all of nothing.

While it is sad that 7,000 people are loosing their jobs, correlation ≠ causation. The vast majority (if any) of those employees are not front line cast members, and would be laid off anyway as the $18 decision was decided last week and just approved yesterday. Iger announced these layoffs weeks ago.

 

[WDWFanRay]

The vast majority (if any) of those employees are not front line cast members, and would be laid off anyway as the $18 decision was decided last week and just approved yesterday. Iger announced these layoffs weeks ago.

I don’t believe that they would have been laid off anyway. If you have to pay tens of thousands of your employees $3 an hour more, 7000 get cut. It all comes out of the same pie. In 2019, Disney was at $10 an hour and now four years later, they have to come up to almost double that. It doesn’t take a finance major to see that cuts have to be made to support that.

 

[Lilofan]

While it is sad that 7,000 people are loosing their jobs, correlation ≠ causation. The vast majority (if any) of those employees are not front line cast members, and would be laid off anyway as the $18 decision was decided last week and just approved yesterday. Iger announced these layoffs weeks ago.

Chapek announced future layoffs shortly after his exec team met at WDW last fall. Chapek was the first to be laid off. Iger is following through with the planned layoffs.

 

[Lilofan]

Then wash, rinse and repeat once the next negotiation comes up. I wonder what the "living wage" will be then; $30/hour?

Why go to college when you can possibly make $30 per hour waving a Mickey hand to the guests and $45 per hour at the OT rate?

 

[Lilofan]

Great! Since they voluntarily agreed to this wage structure, we will be spared hearing about CM’s being underpaid, “food scarcity”, “living wage”, and other nonsense for three years!

That alone is worth celebrating!

Haven't seen the future rent increase by the landlord yet.

 

[Lilofan]

Seems likely to be enacted then. I’d love to hear from the 3% who voted no.

Hanging chad ballots of FL from 2000 perhaps coming back to life.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I don’t believe that they would have been laid off anyway. If you have to pay tens of thousands of your employees $3 an hour more, 7000 get cut. It all comes out of the same pie. In 2019, Disney was at $10 an hour and now four years later, they have to come up to almost double that. It doesn’t take a finance major to see that cuts have to be made to support that.

I‘m sure the pay raises are a factor but likely a minor one in comparison to the billions spent on Disney+.

Even if every one of their 100,000 CMs (77,000 at WDW and 23,000 at DL) were working 40 hour weeks and got a $10 an hour raise it would equal about a billion and a half dollars a year, a ton of money, but still a relatively small amount compared to the $30 billion they spent on D+ content last year, especially since the parks are still profitable even with the increased labor costs.

Realistically it’s probably half that number that got the full raise ($7) and many or them are likely PT, still likely several hundred million dollars a year but with 100 million guests a year between the 6 US parks that’s much easier to make up than $30 billion spent on D+.

 

[WDWFanRay]

Chapek announced future layoffs shortly after his exec team met at WDW last fall. Chapek was the first to be laid off. Iger is following through with the planned layoffs.

A homicide detective friend of mine once told me that unlike fictional crime investigation shows like Law and Order, etc. the perpetrators are usually the most obvious suspects. He told me that you look for the most recent events (ex. uncle had a fight the night before with a nephew and now the uncle is dead, it was most likely the nephew) and that info will lead you to the culprit. So, if Disney announces negotiated pay raises one day and then announces 7000 layoffs shortly after, the most obvious answer is that they are connected. Just like it was announced months ago that there could be job cuts, the pay increases have also been known for months. These pay increase negotiations have been anticipated and discussed for months (both internally at Disney as well as with the unions) so the most obvious conclusion if pay increases and job cut finalizations are announced within a few days of each other is that they are connected.

 

[tallica]

Seems likely to be enacted then. I’d love to hear from the 3% who voted no.

PT tipped the gained nothing in the new contract.

 

[tallica]

A homicide detective friend of mine once told me that unlike fictional crime investigation shows like Law and Order, etc. the perpetrators are usually the most obvious suspects. He told me that you look for the most recent events (ex. uncle had a fight the night before with a nephew and now the uncle is dead, it was most likely the nephew) and that info will lead you to the culprit. So, if Disney announces negotiated pay raises one day and then announces 7000 layoffs shortly after, the most obvious answer is that they are connected. Just like it was announced months ago that there could be job cuts, the pay increases have also been known for months. These pay increase negotiations have been anticipated and discussed for months (both internally at Disney as well as with the unions) so the most obvious conclusion if pay increases and job cut finalizations are announced within a few days of each other is that they are connected.

No correlation. Union jobs are still greatly understaffed at Disney world. They have billboards, radio adds and internet adds for union roles at Disney World. This was unheard of pre pandemic. Also serval positions like culinary and house keeping have significant hiring bonuses foe new hires and referrals. None of the frontline workers in parks or resorts are going to be laid off. However a lot of salaried and hourly supervisors that are nonunion could be let go.

 

[tallica]

Raise the pay from $15 an hour to
$18 an hour and then layoff 7000 employees.

So what’s better? 7000 more people employed or the remaining ones making more money? I’m sure that many of the 7000 let go workers would probably be happy to still have their $15 an hour. Half of something is better than all of nothin

Raise the pay from $15 an hour to
$18 an hour and then layoff 7000 employees.

So what’s better? 7000 more people employed or the remaining ones making more money? I’m sure that many of the 7000 let go workers would probably be happy to still have their $15 an hour. Half of something is better than all of nothing.

Union jobs are still greatly understaffed at Disney world. They have billboards, radio adds and internet adds for union roles at Disney World. This was unheard of pre pandemic. Also serval positions like culinary and house keeping have significant hiring bonuses foe new hires and referrals. None of the frontline workers in parks or resorts are going to be laid off. However a lot of salaried and hourly supervisors that are nonunion could be let go.

 

[MrPromey]

Raise the pay from $15 an hour to
$18 an hour and then layoff 7000 employees.

So what’s better? 7000 more people employed or the remaining ones making more money? I’m sure that many of the 7000 let go workers would probably be happy to still have their $15 an hour. Half of something is better than all of nothing.

So far, all the announced layoffs have been in positions that would have been making well north of $15 an hour. Executives and people from the completely DOA metaverse division Chapek spun up after he heard Zuckerburg use the fancy word he (and most executives) didn't understand the meaning of, for instance.

Ike Permutter with an estimated net worth of $4 Billion (yes, with a B) was one of the people just let go.

I mean, it's not cool for anyone to lose their job but something tells me he'll somehow survive this...

I'm sure that 7 thousand won't all be top-line executives and competitively-compensated tech workers in a divsion that hasn't made a cent since it was formed but they've already said they don't expect front-line to be directly impacted which indicates that all or nearly all, will be people higher up the org chart than these folks... thus, people who would not have been happy having their pay cut to $15 an hour.

A homicide detective friend of mine once told me that unlike fictional crime investigation shows like Law and Order, etc. the perpetrators are usually the most obvious suspects. He told me that you look for the most recent events (ex. uncle had a fight the night before with a nephew and now the uncle is dead, it was most likely the nephew) and that info will lead you to the culprit. So, if Disney announces negotiated pay raises one day and then announces 7000 layoffs shortly after, the most obvious answer is that they are connected. Just like it was announced months ago that there could be job cuts, the pay increases have also been known for months. These pay increase negotiations have been anticipated and discussed for months (both internally at Disney as well as with the unions) so the most obvious conclusion if pay increases and job cut finalizations are announced within a few days of each other is that they are connected.

Are you seriously comparing front line workers to murderers because inflation has made it impossible to live off Disney wages in central Florida?

Did you actually read what you wrote before submitting that and think "Yeah, that's a pretty accurate comparison. I'm sure I'll convice people with this example"?

If so, that's beyond twisted.

Why don't you just call them all Hitler while you're at it?

And as others have mentioned, they announced the 7k layoffs before the contract was agreed upon. They've also spent a few billion to buy and redo a cruiseliner that won't start opperation for a couple more years, too, fairly recently.

Maybe it was actually DCL in the library with the candle holder.

I guess if they can't live off Disney's $15 they should all just quit instead and go find better paying jobs that require highly technical skills like so many people here suggest and WDW can shut down since they won't be able to hire anyone to actually run it since, you know, they already can't hire enough people to fill the positions they laid off during the pandemic.

Yeah, that's a great solution.

 

[MagicHappens1971]

I don’t believe that they would have been laid off anyway. If you have to pay tens of thousands of your employees $3 an hour more, 7000 get cut. It all comes out of the same pie. In 2019, Disney was at $10 an hour and now four years later, they have to come up to almost double that. It doesn’t take a finance major to see that cuts have to be made to support that.

That is your right to not believe it, but all you’re doing is “blaming” CMs for fighting for a better wage, while a multi-billion dollar corporation was going to layoff thousands of people either way. These two things are not correlated

 

[WDWFanRay]

Are you seriously comparing front line workers to murderers because inflation has made it impossible to live off Disney wages in central Florida?

That’s what you got from my post? I was sharing an analogy that I have used many times in my life, that the most obvious choice is usually the correct one. Save the drama for your mama.

 

[MrPromey]

That’s what you got from my post? I was sharing an analogy that I have used many times in my life, that the most obvious choice is usually the correct one. Save the drama for your mama.

I typed a lot more than that but if that's all you got from my post, let me say, if you want to pretend to be too dense to get the obvious connotations in your ill-fitting analogy, let me just say, your analogy sucks.

Better?

As for choices, if that's what your analogy of murder suspects was, it's simple - Disney could choose to pay a competitive wage for the local market or watch their people walk out. Universal already announced $17 for these same positions without even dealing with unions a month prior and that's what Disney will be paying for the majority of the rest of the year.

I guess in your world view, they should have agreed to stay at Disney and keep making $15 an hour for the benefit of the motherland?

 

[Nubs70]

That is your right to not believe it, but all you’re doing is “blaming” CMs for fighting for a better wage, while a multi-billion dollar corporation was going to layoff thousands of people either way. These two things are not correlated

Costs of doing business can be divided into 3 buckets known as Labor, Material, and Overhead. If one portion of Labor cost increases and another portion decreases, one offsets the other. In the final calculation, both increases and decreases are related either directly or indirectly.

 

[MagicHappens1971]

Costs of doing business can be divided into 3 buckets known as Labor, Material, and Overhead. If one portion of Labor cost increases and another portion decreases, one offsets the other. In the final calculation, both increases and decreases are related either directly or indirectly.

This isn’t a finance or economics lesson, while yes the cost of labor will increase within the parks division, Disney was already planning these 7,000 layoffs and they started to occur before this raise was even approved. I feel like I’m bashing my head into a wall saying this over and over again

 

[Nubs70]

This isn’t a finance or economics lesson, while yes the cost of labor will increase within the parks division, Disney was already planning these 7,000 layoffs and they started to occur before this raise was even approved. I feel like I’m bashing my head into a wall saying this over and over again

Hence, indirectly.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

This isn’t a finance or economics lesson, while yes the cost of labor will increase within the parks division, Disney was already planning these 7,000 layoffs and they started to occur before this raise was even approved. I feel like I’m bashing my head into a wall saying this over and over again

Disneys was in negotiations with the union long before the layoffs were announced, they knew the raise was coming so they would have planned for it.

Not sure why it’s so controversial to admit a company will make cuts to offset increased costs, they all do it, we all do it in our personal lives too.

The real question is how many jobs were lost because of increased labor costs vs the number lost due to inflation, D+ loses, some box office bombs, Chapek restructuring, etc, etc, etc. Labor is definitely a factor, likely a minor one though.