Union Workers from Disneyland to Target the Company's Shareholders

ANAHEIM, Calif. (Business Wire) – Employees from the nation's most popular theme park will converge on the Anaheim Pond Friday, March 10 armed with handfuls of leaflets designed to inform The Walt Disney Company shareholders of Disney's latest proposals for a new employment contract covering 4,000 workers at the park. A press conference will be held at 9:30 a.m. featuring several prominent elected representatives who will lend their support to the cast members. Anaheim City Councilmembers Richard Chavez and Lori Galloway will join several Disney employees who will take turns outlining how the company's latest contract proposals will devastate future employees, according to Rick Eiden, president of the Orange County Central Labor Council. The Local VIPs will publicly urge Disney to "back off its efforts to re-define the typical workweek" and to dip into its growing profit margin to improve the lives of its employees, Eiden said. Disney's formal proposal to define a full-time employment at the park as constituting 30 hours of work threatens to slash paychecks and eliminate health benefits for thousands of future employees, Eiden said. Disney has so far refused to give ground in negotiations with the unions that represent its cast members, refusing to discuss how it might share a tiny portion of the $32 billion in revenue and $2.5 billion in profits it posted last year alone. Shareholders will be handed literature that demonstrates how the company's current proposals would create a brand-new underclass in Orange County and encourage other local employers to follow its lead, Eiden said.