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?
Because it’s entertaining to think how comically dumb someone would be to choose to be homeless so they can wear furry suits and play with kids…