By Natasha Chen, CNN

 7 minute read 

Updated 1:57 AM EDT, Sat July 20, 2024

Workers gather with signs as the Teamsters union and Disney cast members demand fair wages at a rally outside Disneyland, in Anaheim, California, U.S., July 17, 2024. 
David Swanson/Reuters

Cyn Carranza buffs, cleans, waxes and scrubs Disneyland floors starting at midnight, so that guests coming the next morning feel as if no one had been there before them.

But after her shifts working near a sparkling Sleeping Beauty Castle, she went “home” to a car, for about four months last year, because her wages, plus earnings at two other jobs, weren’t enough to afford renting a place with a bed.

Now, negotiating better wages and working conditions for Carranza and thousands of other Disneyland employees has gotten messy, to the point where thousands overwhelmingly voted Friday to authorize a potential strike.

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Now that the vote has passed, it’s up to union leadership to decide whether to hold one. It would be the first at Disney’s original resort in 40 years.

“Today Disneyland Park cast members made their voices heard by voting to authorize the Disney Workers Rising bargaining committee to call for a strike to protest unfair labor practices by 99%,” UFCW Local 324 said in a statement. “We stood up and showed Disney that we won’t sit by and allow them to intimidate, surveil and unlawfully discipline cast members for exercising their rights.”

Disneyland Resort spokesperson Jessica Good told CNN in an email late Friday that it remains committed to reaching an agreement.

“We greatly appreciate the important roles our cast members play in creating memorable experiences for our guests, and we remain committed to reaching an agreement that focuses on what matters most to them while positioning Disneyland Resort for growth and job creation,” Good said. “Master Services Council’s strike authorization is not unusual as part of a negotiations process, and we look forward to continuing discussions at upcoming meetings on Monday, July 22 and Tuesday, July 23. A strike date has not been scheduled, and Disneyland Resort continues to welcome guests.”

Disneyland officials previously said that there are plans in place that would allow the parks to continue operating with the same expected level of service, in the event of a strike.

Union leaders said if the strike happens, it would likely be of limited duration, unlike open-ended strikes by actors’ and writers’ unions that halted film and TV productions at Disney and other media and tech companies for much of 2023.

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Strike authorization votes are common, and they typically pass by overwhelming margins. But that does not mean a strike will necessarily happen, as was the case with Teamsters at UPS last year.

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While this potential strike would officially be about Disney not allowing union buttons to be worn at work, the underlying concern among rank-and-file workers is about the current contract that many say does not provide a livable wage.

A dream of affordability

Carranza ‘s Disneyland wage is just over $20 per hour, after factoring in a differential for working the overnight shift. Her work is laborious, often dragging 600 feet of PVC hose and working with heavy machinery to buff the floors.

“It’s upsetting that the balloons that we sell in the park are more expensive than [what] I’m making an hour. I have to work an hour and a half if I want to afford one of those Disney balloons,” Carranza said.

As of April 1, California’s minimum wage for fast food workers is $20 per hour, which has affected other industries competing for the same workers. Voters in the city of Anaheim in Orange County, CA, where the Disneyland Resort is located, had previously approved a measure that required the resort’s employees to make a $19.90 minimum wage as of January of 2024.

But in a county where the 2022 median rent was $2,251 a month, and where about 10% of residents live in poverty, workers said a wage of about $20 an hour is still not enough.

After Carranza lived in a car, she moved into a hotel because she could not afford a security deposit or first and last months’ rent for an apartment.

Today, she shares an apartment with a roommate.

Change at the Disneyland Resort – and in affordability in Southern California in general – has been deeply troubling for Coleen Palmer, who has seen been at Disneyland Resort for 37 years.

When she first started, Palmer says she was able to rent a $400 a month two-bedroom apartment by herself on the around $650 per month wages she earned. Today, she rents a one-bedroom apartment for just a little over $2000 a month, and limits the groceries she buys on the $2800 she says she takes home every month. Then there’s utilities, food, a phone bill, medical care, and other fixed costs. She doesn’t travel anywhere besides work in order to save on gas, and buys items like chicken that can be shared with her dog.

Coleen Palmer, third from left. Courtesy Coleen Palmer

“It does feel very defeating at times. It makes me question my self-worth. And there are times when I think to myself, is it worth it? Should I go somewhere else? But I am a few years away from retirement,” Palmer said. She said she wants to stick it out, especially because she loves the job. She loves talking to kids about what they’ve been doing around the park and telling them they’ve been brave to try the thrill rides.

Palmer is happy to see the lowest wage earners get an increase due to the city’s minimum wage laws. But those earning slightly more, with decades of experience, did not get a raise. Palmer said she makes just under $24 an hour after nearly four decades, while an entry-level employee makes $19.90 an hour.

Disneyland officials said wages are up more than 40% in the last five years. But much of that increase has followed changes in the state and local minimum wage.

Escaping reality, not confronting it

A strike would involve about 9,500 employees who work at Disneyland Park, currently under a contract that expired in June.

Another 4,500 employees in the same bargaining group work at the Downtown Disney retail and dining district, the Disney hotels, or the resort’s other theme park, Disney California Adventure. Their contract expires in September, and they are not part of the current strike developments.

Together, they represent about 40% of the entire resort’s employees. But only the Disneyland Park employees will vote and participate in a strike for now.

The unions and Disneyland have two more meetings scheduled on Monday and Tuesday.

These groups do not include the character and parade performers who organized in May as part of Actors’ Equity Association and have yet to start their bargaining process.

Officially, this potential strike would be over union buttons depicting a raised Mickey fist.

A UCFW button is displayed Courtesy Jenna Thompson, UFCW 324

SEIU-USWW, Teamsters Local 495, UCFW Local 324 and BCTGM Local 83 filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board against Disney in June for what they say are hundreds of instances of unlawful discipline, intimidation and surveillance of union members wearing these buttons at work.

The NLRB is expected to investigate the charges over the next few months, after which a regional NLRB director could decide if the case merits a hearing.

Disneyland officials told CNN the wearing of union buttons goes against the parks’ uniform policy and that only a “handful” of employees have been disciplined.

Disneyland officials said in a statement that the parks strive to give guests “an uninterrupted, immersive experience,” and that “anything that distracts from the show or story, be it a non-approved button, pin or sticker worn by a cast member, would be addressed by a leader.”

The term “cast member” refers to any Disney employee, as the company treats any experience in front of a guest as a performance. Every employee works toward creating a space where guests escape reality and suspend disbelief, to feel as if they are truly on a Star Wars planet, for example. For the same reason, cast members are not allowed to refer to humans underneath character costumes, because this would break the façade.

Disney’s policy is that a leader would ask the employee to remove the union button to maintain the integrity of the “show.” Only repeated violations would warrant any disciplinary action, starting with a verbal warning.

CNN’s Chris Isidore and Paradise Afshar contributed reporting.