ORLANDO, Fla. — About 43,000 unionized Disney World workers will be furloughed starting April 19, the largest wave of employees in Central Florida to be sent home without pay because of the coronavirus crisis.
The Service Trades Council Union, a coalition of six locals, announced the news Saturday on Facebook Live. The coalition said Disney had agreed to provide free healthcare benefits for a year and will keep paying for a program called Disney Aspire that gives workers a free education. About 200 union workers deemed essential will stay on the job, the union said.
It’s the latest and most crushing blow to Central Florida’s economy in the midst of the pandemic.
Disney World is poised to furlough most of its 77,000 employees, union and non-union. Adding that number of people to the unemployment rolls would nearly triple metro Orlando’s unemployment rate from 2.9% in February, the latest figure available, to 8.5% now, according to data from the state.
“Things are really looking bad,” said Hector Sandoval, a University of Florida economics professor, about Disney’s furloughs. “The economy is going to take time to recover.”
And as the workers are furloughed from the world’s vacation capital, it creates a ripple effect at the airport, with rental car companies and elsewhere, University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith said.
“All the suppliers that will normally actively be engaged with Disney and doing business with Disney have gone idle as well,” Snaith said.
Union leaders acknowledged they did not want furloughs but that Walt Disney Co. was within its rights to impose them and had already paid workers’ wages for weeks after the parks shut down March 16.
In recent days, Disney had said non-union employees and members of several smaller unions will be furloughed without pay starting April 19 because of the pandemic.
During the virtual news conference, some workers thanked the unions for fighting for them while others voiced frustrations about continuing to pay dues without getting a different deal that spared their wages.
But Matt Hollis, the coalition’s president, called it “a great agreement for the worst of times.”
Disney issued a statement Saturday evening that said, “This agreement provides an easier return to work when our community recovers from the impact of COVID-19. We are grateful to have worked together in good faith to help our Cast Members navigate these unprecedented times.”
Estefania Villadiego, 29, knows her $13-an-hour paycheck from working at Magic Kingdom’s New Fantasyland is disappearing in one week for an unknown period of time. To prepare, she pays attention to what she can control, like cooking only what the family needs and turning out the lights in her apartment.
Her husband still works as a plumber, but, “When you have a family, only one salary is not enough,” said Villadiego, a shop steward who is active with the union. “That’s very scary.”
She is grateful to keep her insurance, which she says also covers her husband and 10-year-old daughter. Her husband could be exposed to the coronavirus as he’s called to work in homes, and it gives her peace of mind knowing they have medical coverage in case he and the family get sick, she said.
In Orlando, Disney World closed March 16 and no official opening date is set as concerns about spreading the virus exist and government orders encouraging people to stay home still stand. In Florida, the death toll Saturday from the highly contagious virus was nearly 450 people and 18,494 reported cases of infection.
Disney workers will now join the line of Floridians, many angry and frustrated, seeking to get unemployment benefits from a system that’s failed to keep up with explosive demand.
This past week alone, people filed 225,755 initial unemployment claims to the state that’s already falling behind with a backlog of more than 560,000 claims, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
Many people have complained the process was already cumbersome before the coronavirus pandemic forced restaurants, hotels and other businesses to lay off or furlough employees.
The most that Floridians are eligible for from the state is $275 per week, making it one of the smallest unemployment benefits in the nation.
Workers losing their pay could be eligible to get up to $600 per week from the federal government from the federal stimulus signed into law by President Donald Trump on March 27.
Disney union leaders joined the ranks calling for the state to fix the system.
“We need to make our voices heard,” said Jeremy Haicken, president of Unite Here Local 737, as he called on rank-and-file members to put signs outside their homes and on their Facebook pages as part of an upcoming week of action to attract the governors’ and legislators’ attention. “The current system is unacceptable.”
Elsewhere among Orlando’s major theme parks, Universal Orlando Resort, which employs about 25,000 people, has promised to pay the full wages to its employees through April 19 as its theme parks are closed at least until May 31.
Starting April 20, “nearly all our team members will be paid at 80% of their pay — and we will ask them to adjust their work accordingly,” the company has said in an emailed statement.
Part-time Universal hourly workers will get furloughed without pay beginning May 3.
“We are working hard to find solutions that also allow us to sustain our business,” the Universal statement said previously.
Meanwhile, at SeaWorld, workers also are furloughed indefinitely after the Orlando-headquartered company announced the unpaid furloughs starting April 1 for more than 90% of its employees.
However, the economic hardship hit earlier for many SeaWorld workers compared with those at Disney and Universal.
Part-time workers, the majority of SeaWorld’s labor force, have gone without regular paychecks since the parks closed March 16. Full-time employees were paid for the two weeks before the furloughs took effect.
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(Editor Mark Skoneki contributed to this report.)
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