Strike in December?
- Thread starter rigsby25
- Start date
Old news.
Yesterday the union and Disney reached a tentative agreement. The union will recommend a "Yes" vote to its members.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-bk-disney110404,0,2133809.story?coll=orl-home-headlines
Even if that didn't happen, Florida is a Right to Work state, meaning they still have thousands of non-union workers on the payroll and there's nothing to keep them from hiring more.
Still, I'm glad this has (seemingly) come to an amicable conclusion.
Yesterday the union and Disney reached a tentative agreement. The union will recommend a "Yes" vote to its members.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-bk-disney110404,0,2133809.story?coll=orl-home-headlines
Even if that didn't happen, Florida is a Right to Work state, meaning they still have thousands of non-union workers on the payroll and there's nothing to keep them from hiring more.
Still, I'm glad this has (seemingly) come to an amicable conclusion.
We just got back from 3 days at OKW. There will be a contract vote this Thursday. According to the CMs we spoke to, they should be approving the contract. Hopefully that will include the two groups that were left out of the negtiations
DebbieB
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Still nothing to worry about. They went from less than 1% YES vote to 43% YES on this last offer. Right now we're just seeing infighting between the different unions.
Only 40% of the workforce is part of the union. Based upon the large percent of YES votes, I suspect there would be many strikebreakers if a strike was called. They could also give many of the non-union part-timers additional hours, and hire more non-union staffers.
It may not be over in a literal sense--but figuratively speaking it is. Regardless of what happens, WDW is unlikely to miss a beat.
Only 40% of the workforce is part of the union. Based upon the large percent of YES votes, I suspect there would be many strikebreakers if a strike was called. They could also give many of the non-union part-timers additional hours, and hire more non-union staffers.
It may not be over in a literal sense--but figuratively speaking it is. Regardless of what happens, WDW is unlikely to miss a beat.
John Dobbertin
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tjkraz: Your words are encouraging, but the Thursday vote was something like 3,600 no to 2,700 yes. Maybe that's an increase in the yes-vote, but it's still a resounding "no." And maybe these are just the "activists." But if I'm going to spend a pile of money to take the extended family to WDW end of November/early December (which are our ressies), we will cancel before we'll land in a WDW/union mess. It would be nice to hear from Disney.
I have no doubt that some people would cancel their trips, but I don't think I'd be one of them. 
I don't claim to be an expert on this situation, but here's what I'm seeing. The "union" in this case is actually 5 or 6 separate unions who bargain collectively under the name Service Trades Council. Since the tentative agreement was announced a week ago, two of the indiviudal unions have come forward claiming that they were excluded from the final negotiations. As such, these two unions unilaterally instructed their membership to vote against the deal.
There are a lot of rumors as to what may happen at this point. The most intriguing is that this entire Service Trades Council may be dissolved. One article I read today indicated that it's already a pretty tenuous relationship. Reportedly one of the member unions is actually involved in litigation against another.
Regardless of what happens, a Federal Mediator is likely to be called in. That will delay any possible strike vote.
Above all, it's important to remember that there has never been a strike at Walt Disney World. If it comes to the 11th hour, Disney need to decide whether they want to give a little more to the union, or if they can adequately operate the resort without the striking employees. Either way, it's taken them 3 years to recover from 9/11. I doubt they will risk alienating guests by digging in their heels with the union and trying to run the park in a substandard manner.
In the end, my position is that I'm not going to lose a moment's sleep over the situation. If it resolves itself between now and 12/11, great. If not, then until proven otherwise, I'm going to trust that it will be business as usual when we visit.
Heck, I just passed the 31-day cancellation window, so that's not an option. The APs are paid for. Our guests are paying for the meals on this trip. Honestly, I can't even find a financial reason to cancel.
I don't claim to be an expert on this situation, but here's what I'm seeing. The "union" in this case is actually 5 or 6 separate unions who bargain collectively under the name Service Trades Council. Since the tentative agreement was announced a week ago, two of the indiviudal unions have come forward claiming that they were excluded from the final negotiations. As such, these two unions unilaterally instructed their membership to vote against the deal.
There are a lot of rumors as to what may happen at this point. The most intriguing is that this entire Service Trades Council may be dissolved. One article I read today indicated that it's already a pretty tenuous relationship. Reportedly one of the member unions is actually involved in litigation against another.
Regardless of what happens, a Federal Mediator is likely to be called in. That will delay any possible strike vote.
Above all, it's important to remember that there has never been a strike at Walt Disney World. If it comes to the 11th hour, Disney need to decide whether they want to give a little more to the union, or if they can adequately operate the resort without the striking employees. Either way, it's taken them 3 years to recover from 9/11. I doubt they will risk alienating guests by digging in their heels with the union and trying to run the park in a substandard manner.
In the end, my position is that I'm not going to lose a moment's sleep over the situation. If it resolves itself between now and 12/11, great. If not, then until proven otherwise, I'm going to trust that it will be business as usual when we visit.
Heck, I just passed the 31-day cancellation window, so that's not an option. The APs are paid for. Our guests are paying for the meals on this trip. Honestly, I can't even find a financial reason to cancel.
John Dobbertin
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tjkraz: From the tone of your post, I don't believe you've ever been in the midst of a management/labor hurrah. Let me tell you from my experience, it isn't any fun. WDW is supposed to be fun. The whiff I'm receiving right now is this thing is in some kind of heap with unions suing unions and strike votes being taken. I'm also reading the Orlando papers. I can cancel, and I will. And I suspect I won't be the only one. As I said earlier, I really don't care to enter the "who's right/who'wrong" dispute. Nobody is going to win here unless this is settled pronto. We're due to arrive 30 Nov.
John:
No, I haven't been stuck in the middle of such a dispute before. But, as I said, it's out of my control and off my radar. A million different scenarios could play out over the next 30 days and I'm not going to try and analyze each one.
The only thing I do know to be true is that Walt Disney World will be open on 12/11. That's all that matters to me. If the workers are striking, I'll just go with the flow this time and accept the fact that that there MAY be lapses in service. It wouldn't be an ideal situation, but I'm not going to cancel a family trip that is 11 months in the making over something like this.
And, to be blunt, every potential guest that chooses to cancel over strike concerns will be one less person we are battling at the parks over our 7 day stay.
No, I haven't been stuck in the middle of such a dispute before. But, as I said, it's out of my control and off my radar. A million different scenarios could play out over the next 30 days and I'm not going to try and analyze each one.
The only thing I do know to be true is that Walt Disney World will be open on 12/11. That's all that matters to me. If the workers are striking, I'll just go with the flow this time and accept the fact that that there MAY be lapses in service. It wouldn't be an ideal situation, but I'm not going to cancel a family trip that is 11 months in the making over something like this.
And, to be blunt, every potential guest that chooses to cancel over strike concerns will be one less person we are battling at the parks over our 7 day stay.
arminnie
<font color=blue>Tossed the butter kept the gin<br
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I've lived in Detroit and Pittsburgh which are big union cities. You DO NOT want to be in the middle of a labor/management tiff in highly unionized places like those cities. It seems like everyone jumps in, and it can be highly divisive - sort of like the presidential elections. Emotions can run high on both sides.
On the other hand I worked for an oil company in Houston. When the union went out on strike (every few years) it barely made a ripple in the local news.
Non-union employees from other divisions were called in to work at the refineries - they ended up having a blast - being fed well and put up in nice accomodations with extra pay. I never did that but those positions were highly sought after by others that I worked with. Amazingly nothing was shut down and profits went up. It was mostly a non-issue to the general public.
I have no idea how a strike would play in Florida, but I'm not cancelling my plans. Less than 4000 workers is not a huge percentage of the WDW work force.
On the other hand I worked for an oil company in Houston. When the union went out on strike (every few years) it barely made a ripple in the local news.
Non-union employees from other divisions were called in to work at the refineries - they ended up having a blast - being fed well and put up in nice accomodations with extra pay. I never did that but those positions were highly sought after by others that I worked with. Amazingly nothing was shut down and profits went up. It was mostly a non-issue to the general public.
I have no idea how a strike would play in Florida, but I'm not cancelling my plans. Less than 4000 workers is not a huge percentage of the WDW work force.
I don't know how Disney is set up, but like you, I worked for an oil company. Maybe the same one. Was it headquartered in Chicago? The refineries were so automated that they could be run remote. The personnel were there for safety reasons. I know the refinery in the Chicago area was controlled by computers located in Chicago. Or at least that was the claim. Management went on site before the strike and stayed until after the strike.
By design the company had all the union contracts end at different times. The old divide and conquer game. The unions failed to realize this. If they all had gone on strike at the same time the company would have been hard pressed.
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