ORLANDO, Fla. – After months of contentious negotiations, Walt Disney World and leaders of its largest union group agreed Thursday to a tentative contract that will likely avert a strike at the theme park resort.
A majority of leaders of the Service Trades Council, a coalition of six unions that represents 40 percent of the company’s 53,000-person work force, will recommend approval of the three-year contract to its members when they vote on it next Thursday.
Earlier this week, union leaders advised members to reject the latest proposal and authorize union leaders to call a strike if further negotiations and mediation failed. But both sides found common ground during talks that lasted into Thursday evening. The ballot still will ask members to approve the proposal, or reject it and authorize a strike.
The contract covers hotel workers, costumed characters, bus drivers, ticket takers, ride operators and concession workers. Union members rejected two previous proposals.
“Neither side was totally pleased with the package,” said Ed Chambers, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Local 1625. “In my experience, when neither side is really happy, you got the best deal for everybody.”
Disney backed down from what union leaders considered a deal-breaker: raising the number of job hours that are allowed to be worked by part-time workers. Union leaders considered it a way for the company to save on health care costs and other benefits given to full-time workers. Under the new proposal, workers will pay more toward their health insurance costs.
Earlier in the day, Disney spokeswoman Jacquee Polak called the contract proposal “fair and competitive.”
Chambers said under the latest proposal:
* Top-scale workers who earn $11.12 an hour will get a 20-cents-an-hour increase and a lump sum bonus of between $1,500 and $1,700 during the contract’s first year. In the second year, they will get another lump sum, and in the third year they will get a 25-cents-an-hour wage increase.
* The starting minimum wage at $6.70 an hour will increase 10 cents an hour for each year of the contract.
* New employees will be able to enroll in the company’s pension plan. Under previous proposals, Disney wanted new hires only eligible for a 401(k) plan.
* Guaranteed weekly hours will rise from 30 to 32.
* The threshold for being a full-time worker will go from 25 to 30 hours a week.
Walt Disney World’s last strike was by some musicians in the early 1980s.
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