Disneyland Resort is engaged in “unfair labor practices” with its hotel workers, charges the National Labor Relations Board, which has scheduled an August hearing on the matter.
Disney, which has three hotels in Anaheim, recently renovated many rooms, adding new mattresses, more pillows and bigger sheets.
Unite Here union officials say the new luxuries for guests have created extra work for the 2,150 workers represented by Local 11–without the union's consent.
This has also led to more on-the-job injuries for its members, claims Unite Here, whose Local 11 has been working
without a contract for two years., spurring walkouts, hunger strikes and serenading from Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello.
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Disney officials claim that the workload for hotel workers has stayed about the same because other chores have been eliminated, and that company reps have met with Unite Here to discuss the room changes, according to a report in today's Orange
County Register.
“Local 11 has a history of filing a disproportionately high number of
grievances,” Suzi
Brown, a Disneyland Resort spokeswoman, reportedly says in a prepared statement. “This is just another one of their tactics to distract from
the real issue–that after more than two years their members still do
not have a contract despite our fair and comprehensive offer.”
Counters Unite Here spokeswoman Leigh Shelton, “This is sort of a tool we can use to hold the company accountable.”
Unions typically file complaints that lead to charges by the National Labor Relations Board, but a spokesman tells the Register this only happens about 10 percent of the time–after formal investigations.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.