

At the meeting, Briceno confirmed that the union has agreed to meet with Disney at the Anaheim Hilton, the location Disney proposed over a month ago. After staging a series of actions against Disney that included a protest at the Paradise Pier Hotel on February 15, Briceno said the union is ready to move on to the next level. The negotiations reportedly won't begin until April; the exact date has not yet been agreed upon.
Briceno has not responded to recent requests for an interview with MousePlanet, but cast members say that there are at least two major points of contention in this negotiation. The headline issue is likely to be health care. Local 681 employees who work an average of just under 18 hours per week receive "free" health insurance, paid for by Disney through contributions to the union's insurance fund. Disney currently pays just over $2.50 per cast member per hour for this coverage; the union wants Disney to raise that contribution to around $3.25. The union also wants to negotiate raises for hourly cast members (something that won't impact the tipped cast members covered by the contract).
A few cast members have complained that the union is not doing enough to keep them informed about what is happening in the negotiations, and Ada Briceno reportedly promised cast members that the union will be sending out a letter to the membership shortly. Disney has already sent out at least four letters to the covered cast members, but the union so far has relied on shop stewards and "committee" members to spread their message. Union leaders say that mailings are expensive, that they need time to have letters approved by their legal team and that many cast members ignore letters anyway. Whatever method they use, be it direct letters or an update on their Web site, the union definitely needs to touch base with their entire membership - if only to try to collect dues from them.
Under the terms of the expired contract, Disney deducted union dues (about $35 per month) directly from cast member paychecks, and forwarded that money to the union. The contract states that Disney will continue to do so even after the contract expires, unless the union refuses to extend the contract. When the union did just that, Disney notified the union that they would stop deducting dues effective March 1 of this year.
This puts the union in the position of trying to collect dues from 2,300 individual cast members. Union committee leaders staged a two-day "electronic funds transfer drive" at the three Disney hotels, trying to convince employees to sign up for automatic electronic fund withdrawals of their monthly dues. About 10 percent of the cast signed up; another 20 percent paid their dues to the union in cash or check. That still leaves the union trying to collect from 70 percent of the Disney cast members, and, with Disney cast members representing over half of the Local 681 employees, represents a 35 percent reduction in their cash flow for March.
A union organizer at the meeting reportedly accused Disney of taking the action with the intent of distracting the union employees from the negotiations to come, and said that the union is spending more in labor hours to collect dues then they are taking in. Meanwhile, the union claimed that it has spent more money so far on this contract negotiation than it had on any contract so far in the history of the union, and the talks have not yet even begun.
(mouseplanet.com)