February 13, 2024, 8:43 PM ·
Actors’ Equity Association, the labor union that represents Broadway performers and other stage actors across the United States, has launched a new organizing campaign at Disneyland.
Equity has launched a website – MagicUnited.org – for the organizing effort. About 1,700 cast members, who primarily work as performers in parades and as characters around the resort, are being asked to sign union cards. If enough employees sign, the National Labor Relations Board will conduct an election to certify the union. (Disneyland could opt to voluntarily recognize the union without an NLRB election, but that businesses rarely do that.)Unions represent nearly all the other cast members at Disneyland, including the Entertainment performers who work stage show. They are represented by the American Guild of Variety Artists, a sister union of the Actors Equity Association. By choosing to join Equity, Disneyland character and parade performers would be able to bargain collectively with Disney management over pay and working conditions. Equity currently represents Entertainment cast members at the Walt Disney World Resort, and Magic United includes a page that compares the pay and working conditions for non-union cast at Disneyland with the Equity-represented cast at Walt Disney World. Equity also is offering to waive its initiation fee for Disneyland cast members as part of this organizing effort.
Organizers say that their negotiating priorities would be higher pay, better working conditions, a reliable scheduling system, and creating a guaranteed open line of communication for employees to management. * * *
To keep up to date with more theme park news, please sign up for Theme Park Insider’s weekly newsletter.
Replies (1)
