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.
…
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.
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.
30% rule is long dead.
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…
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.
Why would their revenue be lower…?
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.
2 dogs? Living in a car? How??? Why???
For protection.
“I don’t have enough money to pay rent… I’ve got an idea! I would get a dog!”
Or… “I work hard and live modestly in a small apartment with two dogs that I love. Oops, the landlord just jacked up my rent and I can no longer afford it, and the multi-billion dollar company I work for refuses to allow pay increases to help their low-paid employees deal with inflating prices. Now, I have to live in my car briefly while I figure this situation out.”
“briefly”
Two years
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.
We get it, you have no empathy, neither for homeless people nor even for dogs.
Do the dogs sit in the car all day? In orlando florida? Doesnt that normally kill the dogs? How is it possible for 2 dogs to live in a car while their owner is at work?
Do you think those dogs have appropriate living conditions? Seems to me like you’re the one that has no empathy for them.
Very possibly, better than the alternative in most cities…
Two fucking years living in a car? No, that’s not appropriate conditions.
There it is
Being homeless might be the reason she got the dogs.
Homeless women are vulnerable and dogs provide protection.
big corporation under-pays workers, absolute shocker.
There are so many seasonal tourist businesses in the US. Many of these places are either very remote or extremely popular. These businesses need seasonal workers for 3-8 months. The vast majority require housing.
Many of these businesses provide. The smaller ones may have a room or cabin. Larger ones may have salvage travel trailers and shanty apartments. In remote places the only store nearby is the company store. If a worker’s vehicle breaks they’re effectively trapped.
Back to the 1800s, I guess.
Disneyland is definitely not a seasonal tourist business. It is packed 365 days a year.
Just like Vail, extremely popular, where workers are housed.
“Mickey would want fair pay,”
Are we sure about that?
One of his best friends is related to a billionaire.
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
Homeless people normally take very good care of their dogs. Dogs are very adaptable. For anyone questioning this, please do some research and check your privilege. You might be surprised at what you learn.
this is becoming normal for most in the US
hardly anyone here makes over $20 an hour and it shows that people are unable to afford to go to work due to subpar pay
know a plumbing business in our area that pays its employees less than $15 an hour and that is considered good pay in this area with housing and food as high as the rest of the country
and the US has not had a proworker president ever
Biden threatened the last workers to protest for better with the threat of losing their livelihoods
cost of vehicle ownership is astronomical these days how could anyone in the US afford both housing and a vehicle with average US pay
know people skipping insurance and registration fees due to low pay and high cost
all this has to come to a head at some point
going to a grocery store that is not fully stocked and only the self-checkouts are open because the pay is so low no one can afford to work is more than normal now in the US
thanks Trump and Biden for making the US a better place for the elites
Yes, this is about Trump and Biden and not the Walt Disney Company. We can’t possibly use this thread to talk about how awful the Walt Disney Company is and how they are to blame for this because they could afford to pay their workers more if they wanted to. That might be too relevant.
thanks Trump and Biden for making the US a better place for the elites
Just to clarify. These two are not the same.
If I had to live in a car, I wouldn’t have two dogs.
She probably had the dogs before she ended up in the car. And yes, expecting her to give them up is asking way too much of her before anyone suggests it.
