Disney Production Workers Vote To Unionize
Following in the footsteps of their Marvel Studios brethren, Walt Disney Animation Studios production workers have voted to unionize.
When the vote was tallied, 63% of employees — including production coordinators, supervisors, and managers — voted to join The Animation Guild on Wednesday.
Out of a total of 68 voters, five employees voted against unionization. Now, if neither of the parties files an objection to the result in the next five days, the vote will be certified and labor and management will begin bargaining a first contract.
Disney Had Contested the Legality of the Bargaining Unit
Before the vote, Disney had argued that production managers and production supervisors were managers and did not share “a community of interest” with production coordinators. This, the studio argued, precluded those employees from joining the bargaining unit.
In late September, however, an NLRB acting regional director ruled that the proposed bargaining united was “appropriate” and the election moved forward.
Following the NLRB ruling, production coordinator Maggie Huages said that the finding “exemplifies the core of why we’re unionizing.”
“We knew throughout this process that everyone in our unit deserves to be eligible but the company still decided to pursue this long and arduous process in an attempt to divide us,” she continued.
A Long Time Brewing
The studio employees first announced their intent to unionize in March. At the time the would-be union stated that Disney had denied their request to voluntarily recognize the group.
The genesis of the union, however, actually began in the winter of 2022. At the time, studio employees sought changes to pay and healthcare so that they could transfer to different jobs.
“Even though I love my job, I regularly must consider if I should instead find a job with better pay, better hours, better benefits, and a more viable career path forward. Joining TAG gives me hope that I’ll no longer have to consider leaving my dream job in order to live comfortably,” production coordinator Shannon Henley said at the time that the unionization attempt was announced.
The bargaining union of production workers at Disney is just the latest example of increasing unionization throughout Hollywood. Following the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, Hollywood creatives have increasingly looked to unions to help protect them against unpaid overtime and a lack of health care.
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