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Disney lays off 100 -- falling attendance blamed
By Jeff Oliver | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted July 1, 2003
Walt Disney World laid off some of its craft and maintenance workers Monday for the first time in nine years, as theme-park attendance continues to languish, the company and union officials said.
The giant resort, in consultation with the workers' bargaining unit, laid off about 100 of the skilled laborers but also restored the remaining employees' 40-hour workweeks.
The decision to resort to layoffs to eliminate reduced work schedules followed a week of discussion between Disney and the Craft Maintenance Council, the umbrella group that represents the unionized workers, said Rena Callahan, a Disney spokeswoman.
The laid-off workers, mostly carpenters and decorators, constitute about 2.5 percent of the 4,000 craft and maintenance employees at Disney, which has a total work force in excess of 50,000 people.
Monday's action reversed a previous agreement between Disney and the council. That agreement, reached in March, had stipulated that union members would work, on average, 35-hour workweeks in lieu of layoffs.
Disney cut many of its employees' hours in the months following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but the agreement in March had formalized Disney's right to reduce the hours of full-time employees represented by the Craft Maintenance Council. That agreement also extended the council's current contract for another year, with the promise of a 3 percent pay raise this fall.
But the council always viewed the reduced work schedules as a temporary measure, until business at the resort rebounded. The shorter workweeks threatened to affect some full-time employees' benefits and eligibility for pension credits and welfare, said Joseph Maloney, a union official in Washington, D.C.
"We were hoping it was going to be a short-term initiative," he said, but "the latest round of attendance shows there is a decrease, . . . and something had to be done."
"It's unfortunate that layoffs are inevitable," he added. "It's just attendance is low -- it's nobody's fault."
Callahan said the number of work hours lost through the layoffs would be redistributed among the remaining craft and maintenance employees. She said the layoffs were made based on seniority.
"These type of decisions are always very difficult to make," Callahan said. "This is the option that served the greater good."
The job cuts are the first involving the craft and maintenance work force at Disney World since 1994, according to Helen Corbett, a union spokeswoman.
Attendance at Disney, which began dropping in early 2001, fell even faster after the September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., led to a nationwide slump in travel.
While many theme-park operators expected, or at least hoped, that sluggish attendance figures would improve this year with the end of the war with Iraq, an increase is now looking less likely, said Jim Cammisa, publisher of Travel Industry Indicators, an industry newsletter based in Miami.
Cammisa said that, based on hotel occupancy, tax revenue and other indicators, theme-park attendance is probably down 3 percent so far this year compared with 2002. And attendance last year was down 5 percent from 2001.
Jeff Oliver can be reached at joliver@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5490.
Copyright © 2003, Orlando Sentinel
By Jeff Oliver | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted July 1, 2003
Walt Disney World laid off some of its craft and maintenance workers Monday for the first time in nine years, as theme-park attendance continues to languish, the company and union officials said.
The giant resort, in consultation with the workers' bargaining unit, laid off about 100 of the skilled laborers but also restored the remaining employees' 40-hour workweeks.
The decision to resort to layoffs to eliminate reduced work schedules followed a week of discussion between Disney and the Craft Maintenance Council, the umbrella group that represents the unionized workers, said Rena Callahan, a Disney spokeswoman.
The laid-off workers, mostly carpenters and decorators, constitute about 2.5 percent of the 4,000 craft and maintenance employees at Disney, which has a total work force in excess of 50,000 people.
Monday's action reversed a previous agreement between Disney and the council. That agreement, reached in March, had stipulated that union members would work, on average, 35-hour workweeks in lieu of layoffs.
Disney cut many of its employees' hours in the months following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but the agreement in March had formalized Disney's right to reduce the hours of full-time employees represented by the Craft Maintenance Council. That agreement also extended the council's current contract for another year, with the promise of a 3 percent pay raise this fall.
But the council always viewed the reduced work schedules as a temporary measure, until business at the resort rebounded. The shorter workweeks threatened to affect some full-time employees' benefits and eligibility for pension credits and welfare, said Joseph Maloney, a union official in Washington, D.C.
"We were hoping it was going to be a short-term initiative," he said, but "the latest round of attendance shows there is a decrease, . . . and something had to be done."
"It's unfortunate that layoffs are inevitable," he added. "It's just attendance is low -- it's nobody's fault."
Callahan said the number of work hours lost through the layoffs would be redistributed among the remaining craft and maintenance employees. She said the layoffs were made based on seniority.
"These type of decisions are always very difficult to make," Callahan said. "This is the option that served the greater good."
The job cuts are the first involving the craft and maintenance work force at Disney World since 1994, according to Helen Corbett, a union spokeswoman.
Attendance at Disney, which began dropping in early 2001, fell even faster after the September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., led to a nationwide slump in travel.
While many theme-park operators expected, or at least hoped, that sluggish attendance figures would improve this year with the end of the war with Iraq, an increase is now looking less likely, said Jim Cammisa, publisher of Travel Industry Indicators, an industry newsletter based in Miami.
Cammisa said that, based on hotel occupancy, tax revenue and other indicators, theme-park attendance is probably down 3 percent so far this year compared with 2002. And attendance last year was down 5 percent from 2001.
Jeff Oliver can be reached at joliver@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5490.
Copyright © 2003, Orlando Sentinel
