Disney starts to disperse bonuses

[WDW_Ding]

Union members are never going to be happy with Disney. Disney has a huge need for low grade labor. They will always get that as cheaply as possible. And with huge numbers of Puerto Ricans escaping to the area, Disney is probably feeling safer in their access to legal labor than they have in some time.

You might call it "low grade labor", but those are the people making sure that tens of thousands of people don't die or get hurt each day on rides and attractions. They are the public-facing part of the company and the people that one thinks of when they think of a WDW employee (they certainly don't think of the suited executive sitting at a desk in California or New York). If you have a good or bad experience at WDW, it was probably because of a "low grade" employee. They deserve a living wage, whatever that may be in central Florida.

Additionally, there is a massive labor shortage in the Orlando area, so I'm told, and a massive shortage of people willing to do house cleaning/room cleaning at the hotels and resorts. I heard a few weeks ago that Disney was paying bonuses of $1,000+ for newly hired house cleaning staff.

he Tax policy was the exact opposite of sound economic decision making, which would be to increase taxes while times are good (pay down debt, set it aside for future expenditures) and cut them while times are bad (to stimulate the economy).

Amen.

 

[jknezek]

You might call it "low grade labor", but those are the people making sure that tens of thousands of people don't die or get hurt each day on rides and attractions. They are the public-facing part of the company and the people that one thinks of when they think of a WDW employee (they certainly don't think of the suited executive sitting at a desk in California or New York). If you have a good or bad experience at WDW, it was probably because of a "low grade" employee. They deserve a living wage, whatever that may be in central Florida.

Additionally, there is a massive labor shortage in the Orlando area, so I'm told, and a massive shortage of people willing to do house cleaning/room cleaning at the hotels and resorts. I heard a few weeks ago that Disney was paying bonuses of $1,000+ for newly hired house cleaning staff.



Amen.

The bold part is exactly how it is supposed to work. You may take offense to "low grade labor" and that's fine. But the people who empty the million trash cans, work in the QS restaurants, sweep the streets, and yes, even stand at the loading areas of the rides, are exactly that. If Disney can find enough people to do it for what they are willing to pay, then they will not get paid substantially more. That is, unfortunately, how economics works. When they can't find the people, that is where the bolded part comes in. I expect we'll see hiring bonuses more and more with the jobs that no one wants to do, like housekeeping, and the jobs that require some kind of skill set and certifications, like bus driving, but they will always try to keep them to bonuses and not to pay increases.

I also suspect Disney will never have a problem hiring for low paying jobs overseeing ride loading. There will always be college interns, retirees, snowbirds, foreign exchange workers, and more that will gladly do that with a smile for almost no pay just for the experience. I think you see the same with gift shop workers and qs cashiers and table cleaners. These are non-demanding jobs. Even many of the hospitality jobs are easy to fill like hotel desk workers looking for experience, full service restaurant servers.

If you want a job that pays more money, you need to find a skill that is hard to replicate. There is precious little of that among the front line workers at Disney. Whether they should get paid a living wage, however that is defined, is not something I disagree with. I wish everyone who worked full-time got paid a living wage. I wish my wife, a pre-school teacher, got paid a living wage. But wishing won't make it happen. If you want a higher wage, learn to do something that fewer people can, or are willing, to do.

Disney has purposefully made it so that as much of their labor force as possible is not, and never will be, something that can't be done by snowbirds looking for a fun way to spend a winter or a college intern looking for a resume line item. And where that isn't true, or even where it is, Disney is looking into as much automation as they can possibly find. See the monorail, the gondolas, online check-in, order ahead food service and more...

 

[Geoff_M]

From what I gather from that article, those figures are cited in nominal amounts, but that does not mean that the negotiations do not include an inflation adjusted discussion. This is not uncommon. Just because the reports we see discuss nominal figures does not mean that inflation is not part of the consideration in discussing those nominal amounts. Indeed in my, rather extensive, knowledge/experience both amounts are part of the discussions behind the scenes, but public reports often focus on nominal amounts.

Then it appears that we are in agreement. That's what I was saying in post #37. The real dollar impact of a proposal is undoubtedly computed by the bargaining committee, particularly with long-term deals, before deciding to accept or reject it. But when presenting a proposed deal externally, it's primarily the nominal details that are communicated (the Orlando Sentinel article is a prime example) to the voting members and the public. I also assume that the legal language in the labor contracts are also normally stated in nominal terms unless adjustment provisions tied to such things as the CPI are included. As an example, when I've read my wife's teacher union agreements, they spell out the nominal year-by-year pay rates, by step, over the term of the contract.