Newsom Urged to Adopt Workers Retention Bill
A Day After Layoffs Theme Park Workers Planned To Travel To The California State Capitol.
Just a few hours after The Walt Disney Company laid off nearly 28,000 workers, Disney employees planned to caravan to the California State Capitol in support of AB 3216.
Disneyland Workers’ Caravan
The Hollywood Reporter’s Ryan Parker posted:
“Our members have given decades of their lives to companies like Disney. Now through no fault of their own, they are being laid off. We urge Gov. Gavin Newson to sign AB 3216 a lifeline for hospitality workers,” Ada Briceño, Chair of the Democratic Party of Orange County and co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11 said in an emailed statement. Disney will lay off approximately 950 of that union’s nearly 3,000 members. That union is taking part in the caravan.
Introduced by Assemblymember Ash Kalra, AB 3216, or “Right to recall,” allows travel and hospitality employees — laid off due to the pandemic — to be given preferential treatment once rehiring commences.
In addition to Disney unions, SAG-AFTRA and the unions for MLB and the NFL also support the bill. “Hospitality workers are the backbone of an industry that almost entirely shuttered due to COVID-19. Like many members of SAG-AFTRA, those workers, who often live from paycheck to paycheck, lost their jobs almost overnight, with very little to fall back on to weather a once-in-a-century economic collapse,” Gabrielle Carteris, SAG-AFTRA president wrote Tuesday.
Disneyland Layoffs: Wall-to-Wall Coverage
Throughout the last 24-hours, MickeyBlog.com has covered the layoffs extensively:
- Imagineers, Restaurant and Hotel Workers Among Those Impact By Disney Layoffs
- Disney Cuts Include 6,700 Non-Union Employees at Walt Disney World
- Why Did Disney Do Layoffs and When Will Disneyland Return?
- BREAKING NEWS: Here’s a Copy Of The Memo Josh D’Amaro Sent Out To Employees Regarding Staff Cuts
- CA State Senator Weighs In On Disneyland Layoffs
- Walt Disney World Cast Member Unions and Government Officials Release Statements Regarding Layoffs
- BREAKING NEWS: Josh D’Amaro Announces Cast Member Cuts In Official Statement
And the story seems set to continue indefinitely.
But this bill might be a step in the right direction, at least for a percentage of those workers waiting to receive a pink slip.
Hope On The Horizon?
However, and perhaps this was the intention of the layoff, there is further hope on the horizon.
Parker added:
Finally, in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter concerning the Disney layoffs, Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly, a senior health advisor for the State of California said, “The COVID 19 pandemic has impacted the health and livelihoods of too many workers across this country. In California, our number one priority is to lead with public health to slow the spread of the virus to begin reopening our economy and get Californians back to work safely and sustainably.”
We shall see.
Photo: Paul Hiffmeyer/Disneyland Resort
Feature Image: MyDisneyDorks.com
