California Disney characters are unionizing decades after Florida peers. Hollywood plays a role

ORLANDO, Fla. -- During 3 years of moving arsenic a parade performer astatine the Disneyland Resort successful Southern California, Zach Elefante ever has had a 2nd oregon 3rd occupation to assistance him gain a living.

Unlike the experiences of his peers astatine Disney's parks successful Orlando, Florida, wherever determination is simply a overmuch smaller endowment pool, the performers who play Mickey Mouse, Goofy and different beloved Disney characters astatine the California parks aren't ever provided a accordant enactment docket by the company.

It's among the reasons the California performers are organizing to beryllium represented by a national now, much than 4 decades aft their Florida counterparts did so.

While Disney asks quality performers to beryllium disposable to enactment astatine immoderate time, that request isn't ever rewarded with scheduled enactment hours, the California performers said.

“A batch of performers get the consciousness that if they don’t springiness their afloat availability, we won’t beryllium successful shows … and that volition interaction different jobs we request to prolong a surviving successful this area,” said Elefante, who lives successful Santa Ana, California.

Earlier this month, the California quality performers and the national organizing them, Actors’ Equity Association, said they had filed a petition for national recognition.

It’s a antithetic epoch and a antithetic national doing the organizing this clip around, truthful the California quality and parade performers apt volition debar immoderate of the atrocious humor that the Disney performers successful Florida person experienced with their union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

It has been a rocky four-decade matrimony successful Florida betwixt the performers who enactment the “magic” successful the Magic Kingdom and the Teamsters, a national historically formed for proscription and warehouse workers which had heavy ties to organized transgression until the precocious 1980s.

Why present for the California quality performers, truthful galore decades aft their Florida counterparts organized? Unlike successful Florida wherever performing arsenic a quality often is simply a full-time job, galore of the quality performers successful Southern California person aggregate different gigs, often successful Hollywood movies and TV.

Elefante performs astatine rival Universal Studios Hollywood and works arsenic a circuit usher for the movie studios. In summation to performing successful the “Fantasmic!” amusement astatine Disneyland, Chase Thomas works arsenic the manager of operations for a theatre festival and antecedently has had jobs arsenic a ocular effects coordinator and amusement licensing agent.

Angela Nichols moved to California to beryllium a TV writer and often works arsenic a writer successful summation to her occupation arsenic an amusement big astatine Disneyland, wherever she assists the quality performers erstwhile they're interacting with guests.

“Disney truly is simply a cornerstone of the stories we turn up with successful our culture. Being capable to ticker radical immersed successful these stories and unrecorded it retired is magical,” Nichols said. “And erstwhile we’re being supported arsenic formed members and performers, we’re capable to marque that happen. We’re conscionable not being acceptable up for occurrence successful the mode we request to beryllium astatine this time.”

When galore of their Hollywood gigs dried up due to the fact that of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the caller actors’ and writers’ strikes, the quality performers wanted much accordant scheduling astatine Disneyland erstwhile it reopened aft a yearlong, pandemic-related closure. The pandemic besides made them much alert to wellness and information concerns concerning things similar hugging guests oregon having sanitary costumes.

Most of the much than 35,000 workers astatine the Disneyland Resort successful Southern California already were unionized, and the parades and quality section members were among the holdovers.

“A batch of formed members privation to bash this fulltime and marque it work,” Thomas said.

Unlike their Florida counterparts, the quality performers successful California are being organized by a national devoted to performers. As such, Actors' Equity Association officials recognize the unsocial needs of the taxable parkland performers successful ways that would beryllium hard for different unions to grasp.

When determination is simply a caller signifier show, the shoes of the costumes request to beryllium tested to marque definite the performers won’t travel oregon gaffe connected stage. Union representatives marque definite “face performers,” whose faces are visible, specified arsenic Cinderella, person the close constitution and treble cheque that parade dancers person crystal packs disposable to caregiver sore knees.

Unclean costumes are a perennial problem, and it was a apical crushed for the Florida performers wanting to signifier with the Teamsters successful the aboriginal 1980s. The different reasons included kids kicking Disney villains similar Captain Hook successful the shins and adults grabbing astatine the chests of performers playing Mickey Mouse to spot if determination was a antheral oregon pistillate underneath.

Clean costumes were truthful important to the Florida quality performers that much than 2 decades agone the Teamsters succesfully inserted a declaration clause to delegate idiosyncratic undergarments that the performers could instrumentality location to lavation aft pubic lice and scabies were shared via the garments.

There ever existed a civilization clash successful Florida betwixt the costumed quality performers and the accepted Teamsters national leaders of motortruck drivers and warehouse workers. The drivers often viewed the performers arsenic surviving charmed lives, paid to formal up each time arsenic if it were Halloween.

Those tensions came to a caput successful the precocious 2010s arsenic a caller person of the section Teamsters affiliate successful Orlando began targeting the costumed quality performers for harassment. The quality performers pushed backmost and the combat went up to James Hoffa, then-head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who intervened.

In California, Elefante is hopeful national practice volition springiness performers a dependable successful decisions astir issues including the larger-than-life costumes, which tin origin semipermanent injuries erstwhile ill-fitted, and the information of performing successful parades during rain.

“It's astir having a spot astatine the array and being a portion of the speech from the performers' perspective,” Elefante said.

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Associated Press newsman Amy Taxin successful Orange County, California, contributed to this report.

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Mike Schneider's book, “Mickey and the Teamsters: A Fight for Fair Unions astatine Disney,” was published successful October by the University Press of Florida. Follow him connected X, formerly Twitter.