Disney workers OK pact raising wages

ORLANDO, Fla. — Thousands of Walt Disney World workers on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a new contract that increases the starting minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next three years while enabling Disney to use more part-time workers and require new workers to stay in their positions longer before transferring.

“We got a fair deal,” Matt Hollis, who leads a coalition of six unions, told the workers after the vote was counted.

Besides raising the starting minimum wage almost 50 percent to $15 an hour in three years, the new four-year contract would raise wages for existing workers by at least $4.75 an hour by October 2021. Each Florida worker also will receive a $1,000 bonus that Disney had paid to other employees after last year’s tax cut by Congress. Those bonuses were withheld during the contract negotiations.

Union officials said the new contract would have an effect outside of Walt Disney World as other non-unionized businesses in central Florida’s low-wage service economy compete for tourism workers in a tight job market. The contract covers more than half of the 70,000 workers at Disney World, the largest single-site employer in the United States. Those workers include costumed characters, bus drivers, launderers, retail workers, monorail drivers, custodians, housekeepers, servers, cooks, florists, makeup artists and lifeguards.