Governor Ron DeSantis’ ongoing battle with Disney World has been extensively covered, but much of the analysis has been about how it may affect taxes, subsidies, California vs Florida employee count and the Mouse House’s ability to expand, build and maintain rides without a maximum amount of oversight. Largely lost in the chaos, however, has been talk about how the lawsuits and changes to Disney’s oversight structure might affect frontline workers. Well, we’re getting our first real taste of that now, and it involves firefighters and EMTs working at The Most Magical Place On Earth.
First, let’s get into a little bit of backstory. Disney has long been governed and overseen by The Reedy Creek Improvement District, which is a committee that’s historically been controlled by Disney itself or those with Disney’s best interests at heart. That’s recently changed, however, as Disney released an official statement complaining about Florida’s so-called Don’t Say Gay Bill and the resulting back-and-forth led Governor DeSantis to appoint a new oversight committee to monitor Disney.
In recent years, the relationship between Reedy Creek and the firefighters/ EMTs working at Disney has not been strong. According to The AP, those firefighters have worked without a contract for the last four years. Their union has also openly endorsed Governor DeSantis’ campaign and released a statement talking about wanting to work with the new governing board. Not long before the new appointees took their places, however, the firefighters worked out an agreement on a new contract with the old board. The union members voted to approve it, but two months later, it still hasn’t been approved or even discussed publicly by the new board. More concerningly, board spokesman Alexei Woltornist also released the following statement…
Administrator Gilzean is actively working with the fire department to finalize a deal that offers a competitive compensation package and gives firefighters the resources they need to protect the public
The firefighter and EMT union hasn’t released a response to the above quote, but it certainly makes it sound like the new board wants to go back to the bargaining table and isn’t planning to approve the contract that would have reportedly increased starting pay for firefighters from $55,000 to $65,000, as well as approved the hiring of up to three dozen new firefighters and EMTs.
Exactly what this means right now is unclear. The firefighters and EMTs were among the few Disney employees to publicly say they were excited to work with the new leadership. Some early meetings between new board members and the union were reportedly positive a few months ago, but it seems like something has changed since then. As the first responders still don’t have a contract in place, there is, of course, a pretty obvious possible risk here for Disney World, as those services are necessary to run the parks.
With more than fifty million visitors each year, it takes thousands of employees to keep Disney World running. Most guests are familiar with the frontline workers that operate rides, serve food, keep everything clean and deal with ridiculous guest requests, but there are actually many more that try to stay out of sight each day and quietly deal with issues Disney would prefer to solve outside view. Firefighters and EMTs would be chief among those, and while there hasn’t been any threats made publicly, it sounds like there is a lot of reason for major concern here.
