News Walt Disney World Union Passes new Contract

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TrojanUSC

Well-Known Member
BigThunderMatt said:
When I worked in resorts half of the roles you could train in outside of your basic front desk position were considered "advanced" and had a premium attached to them. They were much more demanding computer and phone based back of house positions that a lot of people didn't want to do so once you were trained in them you did them almost exclusively. It was an easy way to get an almost permanent pay bump without having to work much overtime and when you DID work overtime (which wasn't hard to get) it was even nicer.

Honestly OT is really only hard to get in certain lines of business. A lot of food positions, pretty much all merchandise and many lodging positions are interchangeable no matter where you work so there's always open shifts and people can fill them easily. Sometimes the company puts limits on who can pick them up so people who would get straight time have the opportunity first but will open it up to OT if the shifts aren't getting filled.

I feel like the people who struggle with OT are things that require specific training like Attractions and certain entertainment roles. If you're not trained in that specific area, you can't pick it up. Even if attractions share similar positions (like a person at the entrance to check height requirement for example), if you're not trained on that attraction, you can't pick it up.
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Operations has a lot of untrained roles with open OT shifts, usually crowd control. Certain attractions have untrained positions available - generally the greeter position, as you mentioned or tending to wheelchairs/strollers. You don't even need to be statused in attractions for many of these shifts. People pick up from all sorts of other departments.
 
GoofGoof

GoofGoof

Premium Member
trojanjustin said:
Operations has a lot of untrained roles with open OT shifts, usually crowd control. Certain attractions have untrained positions available - generally the greeter position, as you mentioned or tending to wheelchairs/strollers. You don't even need to be statused in attractions for many of these shifts. People pick up from all sorts of other departments.
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Do you think they will try to reduce OT by bringing in more part time workers? I’m not really familiar with the way Disney operates but I’ve seen that in other industries in recent years.
 
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TrojanUSC

Well-Known Member
GoofGoof said:
Do you think they will try to reduce OT by bringing in more part time workers? I’m not really familiar with the way Disney operates but I’ve seen that in other industries in recent years.
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That's been a long-standing goal. It's why the majority of front-line cast members are college and international program staffers. They come from anywhere between 3-9 months, Disney pays them their lowest hourly rate and then makes money off them by charging them rent. They get no benefits other than the "soft" perks Disney provides (dining discounts, etc). Even with this, there's usually some OT availability for unskilled roles, even if not in your immediate area. For example, you might be a bellhop at Tower of Terror in need of overtime so you signup to a 6th day working crowd control at the Magic Kingdom.
 
GoofGoof

GoofGoof

Premium Member
trojanjustin said:
That's been a long-standing goal. It's why the majority of front-line cast members are college and international program staffers. They come from anywhere between 3-9 months, Disney pays them their lowest hourly rate and then makes money off them by charging them rent. They get no benefits other than the "soft" perks Disney provides (dining discounts, etc). Even with this, there's usually some OT availability for unskilled roles, even if not in your immediate area. For example, you might be a bellhop at Tower of Terror in need of overtime so you signup to a 6th day working crowd control at the Magic Kingdom.
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Do the part time workers get bumped up to min $15/hr or is that just for full time workers?
 
MisterPenguin

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
trojanjustin said:
That's been a long-standing goal. It's why the majority of front-line cast members are college and international program staffers. They come from anywhere between 3-9 months, Disney pays them their lowest hourly rate and then makes money off them by charging them rent. They get no benefits other than the "soft" perks Disney provides (dining discounts, etc). Even with this, there's usually some OT availability for unskilled roles, even if not in your immediate area. For example, you might be a bellhop at Tower of Terror in need of overtime so you signup to a 6th day working crowd control at the Magic Kingdom.
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Yes, that is taking advantage of workers. And conditions and pay should improve.

OTOH... it is relatively better than an unpaid internship or being a college unpaid athlete. It gives unskilled workers some skills and training and a resumé with work experience for a prestigious company.
 
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BigThunderMatt

Well-Known Member
larryz said:
Well, if you were drawing from the same labor pool as your "friendly" competition, how would YOU do it?
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Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if they started paying $15 right off the bat but I would also not be surprised if turnover became even more of a problem or if they started hiring exclusively part time and seasonal again like they used to pre-Potter. Universal is notorious for taking serious advantage of being in an at-will employment state so if they did hire anybody in full time at that rate I wouldn't put it past them to send that same person packing within 90 days for some minor infraction so they could avoid paying for benefits. Probably not the most efficient method of bringing in new people but they'd also have to be concerned about their current employees jumping ship.
 
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BigThunderMatt

Well-Known Member
Gringrinngghost said:
Nothing says higher rents...
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I could see them twisting it as a selling point, something like "You won't be making the $15 an hour but your rent won't go up either!" I might be wrong on this and someone correct me if so but I think some College Program cast get paid even less than base for the same roles. I believe as long as it's higher than the federal/state minimum wage it was still on the up and up.
 
GoofGoof

GoofGoof

Premium Member
BigThunderMatt said:
I could see them twisting it as a selling point, something like "You won't be making the $15 an hour but your rent won't go up either!" I might be wrong on this and someone correct me if so but I think some College Program cast get paid even less than base for the same roles. I believe as long as it's higher than the federal/state minimum wage it was still on the up and up.
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College Program is outside of Union right?
 
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BigThunderMatt

Well-Known Member
GoofGoof said:
College Program is outside of Union right?
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Only full-time and part-time (known in Disney-parlance as casual regular) hourly are union. Seasonal (Casual Temporary) and College Program are non-union hourly. There's also another division of non-union hourly which used to be referred to as Office & Technical (generally back of house administrative positions, although Guest Relations falls into this category) as well as your obvious non-union salaried roles.
 
JoeCamel

JoeCamel

Well-Known Member
larryz said:
Well, if you were drawing from the same labor pool as your "friendly" competition, how would YOU do it?
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MisterPenguin said:
Yes, that is taking advantage of workers. And conditions and pay should improve.

OTOH... it is relatively better than an unpaid internship or being a college unpaid athlete. It gives unskilled workers some skills and training and a resumé with work experience for a prestigious company.
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BigThunderMatt said:
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if they started paying $15 right off the bat but I would also not be surprised if turnover became even more of a problem or if they started hiring exclusively part time and seasonal again like they used to pre-Potter. Universal is notorious for taking serious advantage of being in an at-will employment state so if they did hire anybody in full time at that rate I wouldn't put it past them to send that same person packing within 90 days for some minor infraction so they could avoid paying for benefits. Probably not the most efficient method of bringing in new people but they'd also have to be concerned about their current employees jumping ship.
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There has been a huge influx of people to the Orlando area in the last year due to Maria and Irma. Plenty of people waiting to step up and fill these roles. The slots will be filled and at a higher wage incrementally. A very good thing for central Florida.
 
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Thelazer

Well-Known Member
They will not start paying $15 off the bat. It's being phased in over a few years.
Gives them plenty of time to phase out roles thru automation.
 
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BigThunderMatt

Well-Known Member
Thelazer said:
They will not start paying $15 off the bat. It's being phased in over a few years.
Gives them plenty of time to phase out roles thru automation.
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When you see how well the average guest already struggles with how they've attempted to integrate technology into the parks, it's pretty obvious that they're still going to need some serious human hand-holding for the foreseeable future.
 

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