Walt Disney World recently settled a deal with unions increasing their minimum wage to $15 per hour for employees. This deal was reached on Friday, Aug. 24, 2018 and was voted on by the union Sept. 5, 2018. This deal will also include an additional 50 cents an hour, for all hours worked since September 2017.
Mellissa Bratun is a sophomore business management major at Cabrini University.
“Disney upping their pay to $15 is needed. All the hard work the employees do at the park, they deserve to be payed even more than $15 per hour,” Bratun said “I think performers should get payed the most, I think they do the most. The people who sell tickets should not get as much as performers, because they do not do as much as other departments.”
Alexis Sharp, a sophomore early childhood and special education major at Cabrini. Sharp works at Charlotte Russe in a mall and Sharp shared her thoughts saying, “I think $15 it is a great pay actually. They are outside all the time and have to face every type of weather conditions. The longer they work there the more they should get paid, but I think $15 per/hour is a good pay, because not many job for us teenagers get paid that amount.”
Ziy Martinez, a junior at Cabrini University, recently just did the Disney program for college students. The Disney program for college students is a semester long paid internship at Walt Disney World.
“My experience with working at Disney was relatively positive. Working for the company came with a lot of perks,” Martinez said.
Although Martinez’s experience at Disney was positive, there was certain things she was not happy with.
“They definitely get away with a lot behind the scenes,” Martinez said. “I definitely think that Disney employees deserve more pay, because $10 an hour is not a livable wage when you have a family and bills to pay. $10 is not terrible when you are a college student, but they take a lot out of your paycheck for rent and it is not worth it. They sometimes overwork their workers. Shifts usually run eight hours, but I would always get 12-14 hour a day with one day off a week. The word was hard at times.”
Walt Disney World will face unions on September 5, 2018, to go forward with the minimum pay wage deal. The sources are not sure when the pay rate will go into effect, until the voting takes place.
