Teamsters, Disney at odds over labor deal

[crazy4wdw]

Teamsters, Disney at odds over labor deal
Local 385 opposes Disney's contract offer -- and it dislikes the plan for busing voters.

Scott Powers | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted May 18, 2007

When most of the union members voting on a proposed new Walt Disney World labor contract head to polling places today, the bus drivers giving them rides won't be the Teamsters who drive normal Disney buses.

Instead, Disney has contracted with Mears Transportation to shuttle many of the 21,000 voters from their job sites to various voting places.

It's a move Disney says was needed because company buses are operating at capacity to take care of customers.

It's also a decision that has annoyed Teamsters Local 385, which represents Disney's regular bus drivers.

"They [Disney officials] don't want any of our drivers to have contact with the other unions' members," said Teamsters Local 385 organizer Donna-Lynne Dalton.

Dalton said that's because the Teamsters' leadership opposes the contract proposal, contending the wage increases aren't sufficient to keep up with rising health-care and other costs, and has urged the 2,000 Disney Teamsters to reject it.

In addition to eligible members of the Teamsters, full-time Disney employees in five other unions will vote today on whether to adopt the proposed new three-year labor contract, replacing one that expired April 28.

The leadership of an umbrella union, the Service Trades Council Union, and five of its six member unions endorsed the deal because of the 4 percent to 5 percent wage increases, improved pension system, and improved health-care plans for families.

Those unions -- UNITE HERE 362; UNITE HERE 737; United Food and Commercial Workers; Transportation Communications International Union; and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts, Local 631 -- urged a yes vote from the 19,000 workers they represent.

"We believe it is a good deal," said Morty Miller, president of the Service Trades Council.

Even if the Teamsters vote it down, the overall majority will rule.

Election results could be determined and announced by late tonight.

Disney spokeswoman Jacquee Polak said the company thinks the proposed contract "meets the needs of our cast members and our company."

Dalton noted the first Disney labor contract proposal brought to a vote in 2004 was rejected by a majority of workers even though most of the union membership had endorsed it. It could happen again, she said.

"I know there are individuals of many job classifications that are not pleased with this," she said.

Scott Powers can be reached at 407-420-5441 or spowers@orlandosentinel.com.

 

[G8RFAN]

Sigh... We are heading up there this afternoon for the weekend. I hope this will be transparent. Sometimes influences tend to "stir it up" in these labor issues and can make an unpleasant atmosphere. This is one aspect of running the parks that I think makes things hard to compare to the "greatness of the past". I am not sure when organized labor was voted in by the employees at WDW, but since my wife is in the construction industry, I know how difficult it is sometimes to get that "enthusiasm to go that extra mile" in her field.

 

[OrlandoMike]

Contract was voted down, back to the drawing board.....

 

[crazy4wdw]

Disney labor group snubs deal - Unions representing 21,000 workers decide company 'can do better' with a contract

Willoughby Mariano | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted May 19, 2007

Members of Walt Disney World's largest labor group narrowly rejected a tentative labor contract early today.

More than 52 percent of Service Trades Council voters rejected the proposed three-year agreement, which would have included pay raises of 4 percent for many workers and health-care options for the group's roughly 21,000 members. The vote was 2,870-2,583.

"We are determined to continue to work to achieve a new contract," said Morty Miller, president of the Service Trades Council.

Disney representatives said they were disappointed in the vote and that they expect to meet with union representatives soon. No date has been set.

"It's a highly competitive package," spokeswoman Jacquee Polak said.

The vote came after some rancor.

Leadership of Teamsters Local 385, one of six unions in the Service Trades Council, would not endorse the tentative contract to its 2,000 members, saying higher health-care costs negated any raises. Wage increases for workers at the top of their pay scale were also too low, they said.

"The vote speaks for itself," Teamsters Local 385 organizer Donna-Lynne Dalton said. "Disney can do better by its cast members."

Disney employees are working under their old contract, which expired April 28. It was extended as negotiations continued.

Before Friday's vote, Disney contracted with Mears Transportation to shuttle many union members to voting sites, sidestepping Disney-employed bus drivers who are represented by Teamsters.

Disney officials said they hired the shuttles because their regular bus drivers are too busy to handle the extra trips. Union organizers accuse them of trying to keep Teamsters bus drivers from influencing the vote.

Still, leadership of the five other unions in the council urged members to approve the new contract: UNITE HERE 362; UNITE HERE 737; United Food and Commercial Workers; Transportation Communications International Union; and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts, Local 631.

Willoughby Mariano can be reached at wmariano@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5171

 

[raidermatt]

Given all the posturing by the Union in the past about how Disney doesn't even match its competitors, its very surprising that most of the leadership recommended approval of such a minimal increase, if it even worked out to be an increase at all.

The CMs must have viewed it in a very poor light to ignore what most of the leadership said.

 

[G8RFAN]

I just came back and I am proud to say that the CM's made it transparent. They all had great attitudes at: Boatwrights and Alfredos, and both counter services at TL (Leaning Palms) and BB (Lattawatta) which both CMs went out of their way to maximize our DDP points for us.

 

[TheRustyScupper]

There is some displeasure and distrust on behalf of many CM's with the union and their negotiating skills. After all, a single union doesn't have enough members to defeat the contract.

 

[tomerin]

as i have mentioned in other threads dealing with this topic, i do have extensive knowledge in dealing with contract negotiations.

what i see as a problem here is you have many unions that are sitting together sitting across from a megalith like disney. each union would love to make their membership think that they are the best union in the parks and that they are not afraid to take on disney and get them a good contract. so in order to make a loud statement a union could throw a monkey wrench into a proposed settlement like the teamsters did. this way even if the contract gets ratified they can hold their head up high and say they tried their best and went further then the others did.

caution here: before one knocks the settlement one needs to look past the money offered. has the pension increased, health care is rising worse the fuel prices so the cost of providing the exact health package has increased for them also. i am not familiar with their benifits package so i am just guessing here. there are many hidden costs also.


also remember the mega-megalithical walmart. this institution pays their employees minimal wages, health care packages seriously substandard so just because a company is in excellent financial health does not mean that they are going to part with anything easily. they dont care about their employees but the public still comes to their stores in droves. would we do the same in WDW?

 

[EUROPACL]

Also remember the mega-megalithical walmart. this institution pays their employees minimal wages, health care packages seriously substandard so just because a company is in excellent financial health does not mean that they are going to part with anything easily. they dont care about their employees but the public still comes to their stores in droves. would we do the same in WDW?

I don't want to be the one to break it to you...but yes people who do jobs like stock shelves, scan cat food, sell cokes from carts, help with the fast pass machines don't, won't and shouldn't get paid well reguardless of how well the company as a whole is doing.

 

[tomerin]

I don't want to be the one to break it to you...but yes people who do jobs like stock shelves, scan cat food, sell cokes from carts, help with the fast pass machines don't, won't and shouldn't get paid well reguardless of how well the company as a whole is doing.

let me see if i understand your post. what do you mean by not getting paid well regardless if a company is doing well. you sound like a business owner or a stockholder. i am not saying that just because disney is doing well that they should make their people rich just pay them a wage where they can live fairly comfortably.


Why Not pay your castmembers a bit above what lets say they pay at Universal. you are sending a message to your employees that they are worth a lot to the company and are willing to show that appreciation by paying them a bit more. when you have a customer service based business that WDW is you want the people on the front lines of service happy and content. when you do not you have the disboards filled with postings about rude castmembers and where has the quality gone? the service isnt what it used to be etec etec. a healthy company can use their financial gain to obtain better and more qualified help if they want.

if you read my post more carefully you would have seen that i cautioned people not to look at just the money offered as there are other hidden costs to the employers bottom line in settling a contract that usually arent so obvious.


BTW: i hate to break it to you but i do get paid well by doing the tasks you mentioned in your post. my wife also gets paid well by doing those items and yes when the company does well we are compensated in the form of a bonus. so as you see it does get done. do we deserve it yes we do.



europacl, i enjoy reading your posts and will continue to do so. hopefully you will read this and not take it as a personal attack.

 

[EUROPACL]

let me see if i understand your post. what do you mean by not getting paid well regardless if a company is doing well. you sound like a business owner or a stockholder. i am not saying that just because disney is doing well that they should make their people rich just pay them a wage where they can live fairly comfortably

No I'm saying that some jobs deserve to get more pay than others...some jobs deserve to be rewarded when the company does well. Does Disney lie to people when they hire them and tell them they are going to be paid more than they are for selling cokes from a cart?

Why Not pay your castmembers a bit above what lets say they pay at Universal.

Most people that are concerned about pay will work for people that pay them more.

you are sending a message to your employees that they are worth a lot to the company and are willing to show that appreciation by paying them a bit more. when you have a customer service based business that WDW is you want the people on the front lines of service happy and content.

No you are sending the message when they get hired "we are paying you this much to do this job".

when you do not you have the disboards filled with postings about rude castmembers and where has the quality gone? the service isnt what it used to be etec etec. a healthy company can use their financial gain to obtain better and more qualified help if they want.

So I'm guessing that the money that Universal pays makes them a better service company than Disney is now?

BTW: i hate to break it to you but i do get paid well by doing the tasks you mentioned in your post. my wife also gets paid well by doing those items and yes when the company does well we are compensated in the form of a bonus. so as you see it does get done. do we deserve it yes we do.

Glad to hear that you're doing so well scanning cat food. You had better hope that you're not replaced by a self-checkout stand soon. Sorry that I don't hold your view that jobs that can be done by 15 year olds and high school dropouts deserve to be paid well.

 

[ChrisFL]

there's other issues at work here though, like the standard cost of living in the greater Orlando area is quite high.

 

[EUROPACL]

there's other issues at work here though, like the standard cost of living in the greater Orlando area is quite high.

Choices. It's all about choices in life.

 

[ChrisFL]

Choices. It's all about choices in life.

I fail to see your point

 

[EUROPACL]

I fail to see your point

Life comes down to choices. People make a choice where to live. People make a choice to get an education. People make a choice where to apply for a job. People make a choice how to spend the money they make.

People should not blame Disney because they made the choice to take a job selling Turkey Legs.

 

[YoHo]

Are we looking at this from the perspective of the employee? Or the Employer? It sounds to me like Euro is looking at it from the Employee's perspective. IE, nobody forced you to take a job that pays little to dish out coke to tourists.

The other side of the coin is that Disney is paying significantly below what other theme parks in the area are and that's a change from the old days when they paid fairly well. They slashed their employee training, so you now have a situation where the quality of the applicant has dropped AND the quality of the training that applicant received has dropped.

Also Euro, we're not just talking about the food pushers here, we're talking about some of the actors and artists both in suits and face characters.

 

[G8RFAN]

If a person has a job that does not pay enough to make ends meet, they usually find either supplemental income or another job. The higher skill level or intellectual level needed for a job translates to higher pay. Are there VIP cast memebers that make more than the cart attendant? I am sure. If you raise the pay scale of the cart attendant so that they can live in a decent apartment without a roommate, you are going to have to set that as your minimum bar and incrementally impact every level of CM above that point. Out of 20,000 CM's, if the average wage was $10K due to part time and minimum wage workers, then you would have an average payroll of 200 million. A 1% increase across the board equates to $2 million increase. I guess I can go to the latest annual report and try to determine what are more accurate numbers, but if you are not careful with managing your wages, benefits and pensions (if any) then you could find yourself in an unmanageable situation in the future like the auto industry is or the steel industry did.

 

[EUROPACL]

The other side of the coin is that Disney is paying significantly below what other theme parks in the area are and that's a change from the old days when they paid fairly well. They slashed their employee training, so you now have a situation where the quality of the applicant has dropped AND the quality of the training that applicant received has dropped.

Also Euro, we're not just talking about the food pushers here, we're talking about some of the actors and artists both in suits and face characters.

I'm sure in the past that Disney had to pay well to get people to move out in the middle of no where Florida. I don't see where anyone is saying that becuase those other parks are paying more than Disney, that they are providing better service these days. So better pay does not really mean better people and service.

Yes I saw that the group reps the Actors as well...again it is still a choice they made.

 

[YoHo]

I'm saying it right now.

Disney Cast members vs. historical quality is:
1: way way way down
2: demographically skewed totally different.

Disney recently removed the "Classmember" part of the nametag, because they had so many class of 2005, 2006.... Traditionally the length of service was significantly longer.

The issue is actually worse in California where there's an even tougher job market.

Disney's having huge problems retaining workers.

 

[EUROPACL]

I'm saying it right now.

Disney Cast members vs. historical quality is:
1: way way way down
2: demographically skewed totally different.

Disney recently removed the "Classmember" part of the nametag, because they had so many class of 2005, 2006.... Traditionally the length of service was significantly longer.

The issue is actually worse in California where there's an even tougher job market.

Disney's having huge problems retaining workers.

YoHo...I totally agree with you that CM quality is down compared to years past. My point is that has less to do with what Disney is paying vs changes in America as a whole.