Check this out!

[imthatgirl]

i agree about the new hires, no one has to seek employment there. but anytime an employee suggests a paycut i would expect people to get upset and try to take action.

 

[BostonRob]

i guess im still missreading it ,as 30K is poor pay?
the point isnt that disney has to pay for healthcare, its that they have always gotten it and now its being taken away. thats a pay cut anyway you want to look at it. and a pay cut from 30K, where does that leave you?

Well I guess it leaves you with a low-paying job. But at least you're employed. What would you have Disney do, operate at a loss?

 

[imthatgirl]

I didn't say it was a great deal of money. I don't think it is a great deal of money anywhere and I know that California has a higher cost of living than most places do.

I just want to know what job the person getting $30K/year does.

Maybe, along with telling me how crazy I am, someone would be able to answer the question.

What position do you think is paying them their $30K/year?

mousekeeper? bell hop, cooks, dishwasher...i think it said in the article that these were the people it was effecting.
i guess i dont understand why it matter what they do there

 

[imthatgirl]

Well I guess it leaves you with a low-paying job. But at least you're employed. What would you have Disney do, operate at a loss?

its already a low paying job, which is why they got good benefits. again, why shouldnt they try to fight for what they already have?

 

[BostonRob]

its already a low paying job, which is why they got good benefits. again, why shouldnt they try to fight for what they already have?

Well of course they'll fight for what they already have - people always do, because they listen to union leaders who get paid to fight these fights without regard for what's best for the business or the employee.

Obviously I'm nowhere near a Disney boardroom and I have no idea what their profits look like, but there's no doubt that with the way the economy is going, the tourism industry is going to lose customers and face rising costs. So all I'm saying is that if these people don't accept the cuts, they may very well find themselves out of a job.

 

[Cool-Beans]

mousekeeper? bell hop, cooks, dishwasher...i think it said in the article that these were the people it was effecting.
i guess i dont understand why it matter what they do there

I guess it doesn't matter. I'm just curious as to who gets paid $30/K a year.

Is that like the minimum wage there? Dishwashers get $30K/year and health care? Or are you just wildly guessing?

 

[Ratpack]

As unfortunate as it is, it is reality. Disney is a company and thus is in the business to make a profit. In order to make that profit, they have to cut costs when necessary. The deal they had was part of a contract that expired which means everything is open again and Disney has decided what they want. If the workers don't like it, then go elsewhere. Then if no one applies to work there, then things might change. IMO these people got what they deserve. Perhaps the solution would be to keep the current plan and in order to maintain a profit Disney changes their current ticket price increase to an additional $100 and rooms rates double. Would that be the better scenario?

 

[imthatgirl]

I guess it doesn't matter. I'm just curious as to who gets paid $30/K a year.

Is that like the minimum wage there? Dishwashers get $30K/year and health care? Or are you just wildly guessing?

i read the article, it said who this is effecting...no need to guess.
i would expect 30k is around minimum wage depending how many hours you work. after taxes it boils down to about $450 a week. i couldnt live on that. and then if i were and they took healthcare away,i dont know what i would do. healthcare can cost 2-300 a month depending on your situation.
do you not think dishwasher are worth 30k and healthcare? i dont understand?
btw, i work in the service industry. i work 3 nights a week and make about 30K as a server and i am offered healthcare(but i live in MA so by law i am required to have healthcare). so i know exactly how much money it is. thank god i have my husband, like i said i couldnt live on it.

 

[imthatgirl]

Well of course they'll fight for what they already have - people always do, because they listen to union leaders who get paid to fight these fights without regard for what's best for the business or the employee.

Obviously I'm nowhere near a Disney boardroom and I have no idea what their profits look like, but there's no doubt that with the way the economy is going, the tourism industry is going to lose customers and face rising costs. So all I'm saying is that if these people don't accept the cuts, they may very well find themselves out of a job.

i agree. of course i would still do what i could to keep what i already had.

 

[BostonRob]

healthcare can cost 2-300 a month depending on your situation.

An average family plan costs about $1,000 per month. I don't know where you get the $200 - $300 figure. But my point is, if they're getting free healthcare, and then they're asked to pay for 25% of it, that's still only like $50-$60 per week. So if their choice is a $50 per week pay cut or no job at all, then they have to decide.
And I disagree with people who say you can't live on $30,000 per year. You certainly can live on $30,000 per year, people just don't want to. People can't imagine life without all the luxuries and conveniences that most people enjoy, but believe me, its very possible to live on $30K.

 

[imthatgirl]

An average family plan costs about $1,000 per month. I don't know where you get the $200 - $300 figure. But my point is, if they're getting free healthcare, and then they're asked to pay for 25% of it, that's still only like $50-$60 per week. So if their choice is a $50 per week pay cut or no job at all, then they have to decide.
And I disagree with people who say you can't live on $30,000 per year. You certainly can live on $30,000 per year, people just don't want to. People can't imagine life without all the luxuries and conveniences that most people enjoy, but believe me, its very possible to live on $30K.

i was basing that assumiong they would be getting assistance for healthcare if they were only making 30K and had children.

like i said, i agree with you that they have to make a decision, but it doent mean they shouldnt fight for keeping what they have.

i see we come from the same area, and yes maybe if you were single living in a studio you could get by on that. i have 3 kids, if i were to choose to rent a 2 bedroom apartment in a decent area(i wouldnt move my kids to an area they arent safe) would run me about $1,000 a month. but of course i would need a 3 bedroom because pretty soon i wouldnt be able to ahve my boys and girl in the same bedroom. that would run me $1200-1500. then you have electricityand heat. thats about maybe $150 a month if im lucky. then we need to eat, maybe $75 a week i could eat on. so using the $1000 dollar figure thats about $363 for necessities. from my $450 a week that leaves me $87 dollars a week for gas and incidentals with 3 kids.
nope sorry...thats why people get assistance from the state.
and thats a whole other post.

 

[Cool-Beans]

i read the article, it said who this is effecting...no need to guess.
i would expect 30k is around minimum wage depending how many hours you work. after taxes it boils down to about $450 a week. i couldnt live on that. and then if i were and they took healthcare away,i dont know what i would do. healthcare can cost 2-300 a month depending on your situation.
do you not think dishwasher are worth 30k and healthcare? i dont understand?

The reason you don't understand is because you're looking for stuff that isn't there.

I want to know exactly what I asked. What position is paying $30/K? That's what I want to know.

It's nice for you to share what you could or couldn't live on, but I wasn't prying into your personal life or anything like that.

 

[imthatgirl]

The reason you don't understand is because you're looking for stuff that isn't there.

I want to know exactly what I asked. What position is paying $30/K? That's what I want to know.

It's nice for you to share what you could or couldn't live on, but I wasn't prying into your personal life or anything like that.

the article answered that question, it wasnt hard to figure out, so im wondering your point? why does it matter wht position it is?

 

[TheRustyScupper]

Here we go: Peter Pan getting put into a squad car

"Second light on the right, then straight on to jail . . ." ????

 

[POOH&PIGLET]

"Second light on the right, then straight on to jail . . ." ????

Classic!

 

[disneyin2008]

I didn't say it was a great deal of money. I don't think it is a great deal of money anywhere and I know that California has a higher cost of living than most places do.

I just want to know what job the person getting $30K/year does.

Maybe, along with telling me how crazy I am, someone would be able to answer the question.

What position do you think is paying them their $30K/year?

Well, $30k a year would be $14.42 an hour, based on a 40 hr week, 52 weeks a year (since I'll assume they get paid for vacations currently).

According to the article:

Luz Vasquez, who works in the bakery at Disneyland Hotel, said she can't afford to lose many of her benefits. She said it's already hard to care for her three grandchildren and aging mother while earning $14.32 an hour.

So, Luz Vasquez is earning $29,785.60 a year (assuming 40hr week no OT).

Of course, cost of living wise this is poverty in California.....here in Arizona for example, gas is $3.69 a gal.....my DH is right this minute sitting at the LAX airport waiting for his flight to come home so I called him.....he got gas two days ago for $4.16, and said he topped off at the airport for $4.29. His hotel room was $179 a night....but two weeks ago the same chain in New Mexico was $89.

$30k would probably be a decent salary in many states. But here in Arizona, I know someone who owns a bakery and she pays her very experienced cake decorator about $10 an hour, plus a little more for weddings that she works. And this is a pretty big bakery in town, so I'm sure that she pays well. That article also said:

Co-worker Diane Dominguez, 50, said she was worried about losing health care because of the heavy labor involved in lifting mattresses, moving furniture and making dozens of beds a day. She also said rising prices and the cost of gas were eating into her salary of $11.11 an hour.


I'm going to assume that Diane Dominquez is a maid at one of the hotels from her description of her work......looked at our online classifieds and hotel maids seem to get about $7-9 an hour here.

 

[disneyin2008]

An average family plan costs about $1,000 per month. I don't know where you get the $200 - $300 figure. But my point is, if they're getting free healthcare, and then they're asked to pay for 25% of it, that's still only like $50-$60 per week. So if their choice is a $50 per week pay cut or no job at all, then they have to decide.
And I disagree with people who say you can't live on $30,000 per year. You certainly can live on $30,000 per year, people just don't want to. People can't imagine life without all the luxuries and conveniences that most people enjoy, but believe me, its very possible to live on $30K.

This too must depend on where you live. In May 2007, my DH's company decided that the employees should pay for 50% of their health insurance instead of 20%. So I went looking for our own policy. With his employer we would have had a $2,500 annual deductible, and after that insurance would pay 80%. OUR cost would have been $750 a month! I found our own policy, we have a $1,500 annual deductible but after that insurance pays 100% (we'll still probably never meet the $1,500 deductible, but the point was to be insured for the really serious stuff). Our cost is $474 a month. His employer agreed to pay 50% of our premium for us...so actually we only pay $237 a month...though I really think that's unusual for an employer to do that when he's already offering a policy.

You need to realize that 10-15 years ago it was the other way around....private policies were astronomically expensive, so everyone turned to the employer group policies. Well, since group policies cannot decline to cover anyone, or exclude existing conditions, those policies have gone up and up and up and up over the years. Our private policy DOES exclude preexisiting conditions, but since we have none, it was a non-issue for us. A co-worker heard about my research and wanted to save money too, but his wife had cancer last year, so the private policy would refuse to cover any recurrance of cancer in her (if they'd even agree to cover her, as they're not required to), so he can't do it, too risky for him.

We could have had a $500 deductible, then 100% coverage policy for about the same cost as the employer policy....but since we don't use the doctor much, we opted for the much lower premium because we're unlikely to even use $500 in a year. I'm trying to talk my husband into a Hospitalization only policy, since that's really our only fear is an accident/illness that requires some serious medical care, not the colds/flu tummy ache visits. But, he's reluctant to do it. But it would cut our cost in half again!

Now....our employer has less than 100 employees, so I'm sure that someone with the work force of Disney gets a much better price due to volume. But, I must also say that the last time I was involved in a union, our insurance was through the UNION not the employer....of course the employer paid the union for the coverage, but I never quite understood what the difference was, except that the union had more than just OUR employer so maybe they got the volume discount for the little companys that way?

 

[melancholywings]

I feel mixed on this. And not because it's Disney.
It's becoming rare and difficult for any company to offer free health care. DH and I both lost ours and now pay a percentage of the total (still better than some). And it's not unprecedented for employees to only get bennies if they are full time. It doesn't mean it's right, but I don't feel like it's Disney that's the big bad wolf when it's a standard practice. Also the cost of living cutting into the wages (gas and such) sucks, but it's happening to many people right now. I can't blame my job because the price of gas is so high.

I didn't see where it said when the three year agreement started?

 

[doubletrouble_vb]

In looking at the article I thought Disney was being shortsighted. It would have made more sense to raise the wages to a competitive level and to reinstate paying for a portion of your healthcare benefits. Failure to do that would mean CM's will choose to go elsewhere. That would lead to poorer service. Ditto for the idea of using lower paid part timers to fill in the gaps altho done judiciously it might work.

Free Health Care! May have appeared to be overly attractive to people who needed to use it. So Disney got less healthy CM's or fCM's amily members and their costs went up not down.

It's a free country, the workers have a right to protest if they want to.

 

[archcrb]

$11/hr is a pretty good wage for unskilled uneducated work. if you don't think so your an elitest. seriously, you don't make that at Mcd's. And if Calif. is expensive to live, then move. I'm from NY and have moved to NC and now Va. Beach, Va. It's expensive to live but not as much as NY where I'd prefer to live but I make due.