Cynthia “Cyn” Carranza meticulously scavenged for a shady parking spot in the car she called home.
The overnight custodian at Disneyland has to sleep during the day - a difficulty for anyone, let alone when you’re living in your car with two dogs. Ms Carranza says she makes $20.65 an hour (about £15.99) at the park but last summer, she couldn’t afford rent in this Southern California city where the average apartment can run more than $2,000 (about £1,550) a month.
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Ms Carranza, like others who work at the park, detailed to the BBC the financial hardships that come with working at what’s supposed to be the “Happiest Place on Earth”. About 10,000 union workers at Disneyland - the first of 12 parks created around the globe - are threatening to strike over the wages and what they say are retaliatory anti-union practices.
Hundreds of workers protested outside the park this week, with an array of signs and pins showing Mickey Mouse’s gloved fist in defiance.
“Mickey would want fair pay,” workers chanted outside Disneyland near the park’s gates.
They voted almost unanimously to authorise strike action on Friday, just days before union contract negotiations for workers are set to resume.
As a former Disney cast member, I wholly support this protest and I truly hope they strike.
In worked from 2008-2016 and started at $9.05/hr. We got 2% a year in raises, but in that time new hires would start at higher wages and they wouldn’t match the employees who had been there to the new employees wage. Brand new employees would make more than those that had been there years.
When Anaheim had a ballet measure to raise the minimum wage they raised a ton of cast members wages to $3 less than the measure in hopes they could discourage people to vote for it. Fortunately, the measure passed. However, during this period they didn’t retain the yearly raises, everyone was raised to the exact same wage. Those who had been there 30 years (no exaggeration) made exactly the same as new hires.
They’ve gotten hostile to their employees and the “perks” that employees for have been slowly stripped away. Each year getting slightly worse. Which is a problem because new hires don’t know how much better it used to be so they don’t know what to demand anymore.
I knew cast members that used to live 6 or 8 people to a two bedroom apartment. Most worked multiple jobs. Many of the entertainers who play as the characters ended up injured from wearing the Mickey and other character costumes. Multiple who had to have surgery to treat those injuries.
They have let standards fall, hard. The parks aren’t what they used to be and literally the only thing keeping them together is the cast. They try so fucking hard to bring the magic to guests each and every day. They have been kneecapped by management though. IMO, of all “attractions” at the parks, the cast are the best. And the one that management should be investing in the most. They are the differentiator between Disney and Knott’s Berry Farm, Universal Studios, and Six Flags. However leadership has constantly worked to move interactions from Cast Members to their half baked app.
Understand that all these cast members do it because they love bringing the magic to the guests. They endure shitty pay, shitty management, and injury for the guests. They care so much about making the public and tourists happy. They deserve so much more.
I need to know more about “the Mickey” and the surgeries it caused… was it too top heavy or something?
That’s part of it, and the way it would sit on the shoulders. Lots of neck and spine issues. Then the hands would lead to repetitive stress injuries for some of their motions.
What a bunch of naive idiots LOL look at me I’m bringing joy to some stuck up rich kids but my life is a dumpster fire, yay!!! 🤣🤣🤣
Not everyone who goes is rich. And yes, they like making people happy regardless of the audiences social status. Many are simply entertainers and they like putting a show on.
Why make fun of people who are trying to bring a little joy to the world?
“Mickey would want fair pay,”
Are we sure about that?
One of his best friends is related to a billionaire.
Seriously, I’m all for labor action (solidarity forever!), but that is one lame-ass chant lol.
Even while being bent over a barrel by them, Disney adults will be Disney adults I guess. Especially the ones who work there.
To show how bad $20/hour is (some people might think that is a lot due to local situation) someone paying $2000/month rent should have $6666/month gross income (using 30% rule). That equates to just under $40/hour at 40hours/week.
They are literally making half what they need to live.
Part of the problem is that the main anti-Disney political coalition doesn’t want to address the local housing crisis; they want the region to go back to being a suburban sprawl.
You could easily build dense housing in the area that meets the balloon test, but Disney doesn’t want to push it and the anti-coalition doesn’t want it either.
Disney could build affordable housing, too, as a perk.
You’d need some serious regulation and enforcement. Company towns have historically been, uh… not great.
For example, imagine Disney rents apartments cheap to their employees but still underpays them. Now they’re stuck working for Disney because they can’t afford the rent offsite and can’t save enough to quit.
The problem here is two-fold, I think. Disneyland can 100% afford to pay a lot more, for one, but also the rent in California is insanely inflated and needs to come down.
It’s like these people are getting fucked at both ends
Last time I checked motels are definitely more expensive… More than 8-9 days a month and you have enough money for $1000 a month in rent. Who in the fuck wants to work at Disney Land anyway
Don’t worry front line workers. The C-Suite and the shareholders appreciate your sacrifice to allow them to make more money.
This is was workers need to strike and form unions.
Ms Carranza says she makes $20.65 an hour
Makes sense. They couldn’t afford to pay her more.
Disney Parks has just released its fourth quarter and full-year earnings, posting a record $32.5 billion in revenue for fiscal 2023, which ended September 30, 2023.
https://blogmickey.com/2023/11/disney-parks-posts-record-32-5-billion-revenue-in-2023/
Disney has a market cap or net worth of $174.83 billion as of July 19, 2024. Its market cap has increased by 5.72% in one year.
You don’t understand. If they paid her and the rest of the employees what would be a living wage, they would make only $32.4 billion. See? It can’t be done.
I ran the numbers and it’s actually $31.46 billion. But you’re not far off.
We really need to eat the greedy. They’re human fucking waste.
I saw something recently about composting them instead. I like that idea.
2 dogs? Living in a car? How??? Why???
“I don’t have enough money to pay rent… I’ve got an idea! I would get a dog!”
Reading the other comments, apparently its a human right to keep a dog no matter what your living situation and suggesting they give it up is evil.
Being homeless might be the reason she got the dogs.
Homeless women are vulnerable and dogs provide protection.
For protection.
That does not sound like the greatest place on earth to work.
They call it The Happiest Place on Earth. Having been there as a non-employee, it was not even the happiest place in Southern California. In fact, there are a very large number of extremely overstimulated and entirely not happy children.
And they wish you a magical day as you are dropped off at your car where you get to have a very non-magical drive down a freeway in Anaheim.
And that’s for the people who pay them.
