Orlando Weekly article re:WDW/Reedy Creek

[Jason71]

Interesting article from Orlando's alternative weekly. Technically it's about a guy running for president of the WDW union, but it summarizes a lot of history of the Reedy Creek development and also touches on the college program. Worth a read for anyone into "the politics of Disney."

http://www.orlandoweekly.com/features/story.asp?id=12053

 

[KYMickey]

This guy certainly has the union mentality, bite the hand that feeds you! What possible good does he see in getting rid of Reedy Creek? Yes, it may mean that Disney has to pay more taxes to the local communities but if they pay more taxes Disney will have less money to provide benefits to the union employees. The alternative, raising prices again would only mean fewer people would visit and thus fewer employees would be required so union people would be laid off. In either case the union loses.

The local municipalities and the state of Florida are not complaining about the arrangement, why should they? Without the arrangement the billions of dollars of development that followed Disney to Orlando would have gone elsewhere.

I don't know about the other candidate but I hope she's smarter than this one. If not at least Florida is a right to work state and employees can leave the union instead of paying their president's salary!

 

[gmboy95]

I am a big fan of disney and have been over 20 times....however i agree with this man completely on all issues...it is easy and convenient to blame unions...however unions are the sole reason the american worker makes a living wage in most cases, and when a union is not present, the reason why service industry folk earn below the poverty line...Guess how many full-time employees of Wal-Mart actually also receive welfare (more then wal-mart wishes to admit)...this should make you angry and demand union representation for all service employees

 

[KINGBOBOFTHENORTH]

......this should make you angry and demand union representation for all service employees

Spoken like a true resident of Massachusetts.

I enjoy reading Orlando Weekly but it is rather left wing in their weekly cover story selections. Last week's main story told how the University of Central Florida railroaded through their new on-campus football stadium. Right. But they do keep the local politicians on their toes.....something the Orlando Sentinel is often too scared to do.

BobK/Orlando

 

[disrailfan]

I am a big fan of disney and have been over 20 times....however i agree with this man completely on all issues...it is easy and convenient to blame unions...however unions are the sole reason the american worker makes a living wage in most cases, and when a union is not present, the reason why service industry folk earn below the poverty line...Guess how many full-time employees of Wal-Mart actually also receive welfare (more then wal-mart wishes to admit)...this should make you angry and demand union representation for all service employees

I work for one of the big three domestic automotive companies. The Union will be the death of the automotive demostic auto companies. No one has any idea how badly they hold the companies down and actually end up forcing the company in doing exactly as they have done for years. It has been suggested that they should go and unionize all of the non-domestic auto companies to level the playing field, do they do this, NO!

My opinion is that they should either unionize everything or they should GO AWAY! Unions are half of what is wrong with this country today. I could tell you more stories but I wont get totally on my soap box.

 

[ursijam]

I work for one of the big three domestic automotive companies. The Union will be the death of the automotive demostic auto companies. No one has any idea how badly they hold the companies down and actually end up forcing the company in doing exactly as they have done for years.

It is hard for the US auto companies to be competitive when GM has an overhead cost of $1500 per vehicle just to provide fully subsidized health care to the union employees.

 

[DancingBear]

Unions have done good and bad, but they weren't forcing GM to put out crap vehicles in the 70s, which allowed Honda and Toyota to get a toehold in the U.S. market.

 

[TheRustyScupper]

1) I am not a fan of unions.
2) I don't like unions.
3) I have defeated three union elections.
4) I have decertified one UAW union.

5) But, in this case, I got to go along with him.
6) The employees deserve more than what they are getting.
. . . wages which are slightly above minimum wage in many cases
. . . scheduled or unscheduled mandatory 14-hour work days, when WDW desires
. . . scheduled or unscheduled mandatory 7-day work weeks, when WDW desires
. . . managers who manage without much supervisory training
. . . refusal of WDW to take Continuous Improvement ideas/suggestions

NOTE: Since less than 50% of the eligible employees belong to the union, WDW knows that a strike happening is doubtful. At least this brings into play other things that could scare Disney into action.

 

[disrailfan]

It is hard for the US auto companies to be competitive when GM has an overhead cost of $1500 per vehicle just to provide fully subsidized health care to the union employees.

Thanks to the latest agreement with the unions those days are over at least for the retirees. The union is now responsible for the health care of their retirees.

 

[disrailfan]

Unions have done good and bad, but they weren't forcing GM to put out crap vehicles in the 70s, which allowed Honda and Toyota to get a toehold in the U.S. market.

I don't work for GM, but I agree with you. I work for one of the others, ok, it's Chrysler. Management made some very bad decisions that are affecting all of us Management and Labor. I have to say though that it is not fair for an employee making $30 per hour to sit for 5 1/2 hours a day reading the newspaper on company time. We are making large cuts, and it will hurt.

If the unions are a good thing then why isn't everything unionized like food workers, sales people, cash registers clerks, bank tellers and more I could go to. At the least then the UAW should unionize the foreign companies that are building cars in the states. Why is it that only 50% of the Disney workers are members, if the union is that good of a thing why isn't everyone a member and forced to pay their dues?

Just some thoughts.

 

[KINGBOBOFTHENORTH]

Clearly unions have had their place in U.S. history but they got too big or too strong for their britches (in some cases) and made many industries too expensive and thus uncompetitive in the world economy that now exists. Since there are so few manufacturers (of anything) left in America unions are now targeting service employees in order to try to grow again. They have made some inroads, but not many. The reason so many workers don't want to be unionized nowadays is they don't want some contract dictating every moment of their working lives. They feel they can do just fine working with management. In many companies management goes out of their way to create a favorable work experience for employees. Happy employees usually leads to happy customers which leads to profits.

BobK/Orlando

 

[DancingBear]

If the unions are a good thing then why isn't everything unionized like food workers, sales people, cash registers clerks, bank tellers and more I could go to. At the least then the UAW should unionize the foreign companies that are building cars in the states. Why is it that only 50% of the Disney workers are members, if the union is that good of a thing why isn't everyone a member and forced to pay their dues?

I guess you could say that if unions are a bad thing then why is anyone unionized? [And by the way, lots of food workers and cashiers (primarily at grocery stores) are union.]

The reasons that not everyone is in unions are complex. They include the fact that labor activists have been successful in getting laws passed for safer workplaces, minimum wages, living wages, overtime pay, family medical leave, workplace accomodation for the disabled, equal employment opportunity, etc. that protect all workers even if they don't belong to the union. We no longer have textile workers in New York locked in their workplaces so that when a fire happens they jump out of buildings to their deaths trying to escape, or mine workers being beaten up or shot by company thugs (okay, maybe we do, but not on the scale or as openly as once occurred).

Also the fact that some management work hard to keep their workers happy so they don't vote to become unionized--that is apparently the fact with Honda USA--it ain't because the UAW hasn't tried to organize those plants (and I think at least one North American Honda plant, in Ontario, is unionized). And no doubt the threat of union organizing leads some management to treat their employees better than they otherwise would.

As for the WDW employees, I'm sure that a large reason that only half are unionized is that FL is a right-to-work state, so there is a free rider problem. Add to that the fact that you're dealing with largely low-paying jobs with a lot of turnover, and a workforce which includes at lot of seasonal employees, retirees, students, etc. that aren't relying on these jobs to feed families, and it becomes even more difficult to organize.

 

[agnes!]

I'm a member of two unions and proudly so. The local staff and our local/branch officers are wonderful. I'm perhaps less fond of some of the national players, but these two unions are worth every penny I pay in dues. They do protect me and my fellow members and were founded because of rampant abuse of workers by management.

agnes!

 

[mickeymedic]

I have worked in a union environment and a non-union environment...both in the same industry. The relationship between employees and management is much more positive in the non-union shop. When I worked in the union shop, the union leadership was constantly finding a reason to antagonize the relationship.

As a hard-working employee, the most frustrating thing for me working in the union shop was the realization that no matter how hard I worked and how lazy my co-workers were, we were getting the same raise at the end of the year. Because the union mentality was "we have to treat all employees equally." Well, I agree to a point. When employees perform equally, they should be rewarded equally. However, there is no incentive to work hard if you know you will get the same raise as the next guy. The union was very good at keeping the rule-breakers and poor performers from getting fired. Now that I am working in the non-union shop, I am much happier. My hard work is recognized and rewarded. People who do not do their job do not remain employed for long. And the harder one works, the better raise one gets at the end of the year. So, for me it is a no-brainer. I am a non-union girl all the way!!!!

 

[KYMickey]

I guess you could say that if unions are a bad thing then why is anyone unionized?

A large part of the reason is because of the antiquated laws that prevent decertification of unions. If unions could be thrown out as easy as they can get in then we'd have a lot fewer people represented by unions! Of course since the unions pay politicians off in so many ways changes are slow in coming.

You just have to look at right-to-work states and see that the percentage of employees at unionized companies that are union members is constantly declining to see that American workers are becoming fed up with unions.

 

[disrailfan]

You just have to look at right-to-work states and see that the percentage of employees at unionized companies that are union members is constantly declining to see that American workers are becoming fed up with unions.

The UAW is in big trouble as their membership has declined by at least 60% over the last 15 years. You only have to look at the Big Three Domestic Automakers to see that they continue to offer employee buy-outs. I work for Chrysler and we are getting ready to put on the street another 12,000 employees. Many of these employees will be offered one time buy-outs so to stop the bleeding since they would have to continue paying them their sub-pay for 44 weeks. (Sub Pay is paid at 95% of thier weekly wages for 40 hours).

Unions are on the decline, and eventually will be deceased.