Americans get laid off and have to train their H-!B replacements.
Definitely not the happiest place on earth.
Disney has laid off long time employee musicians, animators for years. Lots of people and positions in different fields… Starting way back in the 80s and 90’s . This is old, old news. It has never been the happiest place on earth to work.
Especially if you value job security.
This is old news, but it’s still pretty egregious.
I can tell you the new Magic Bands (we call them Tragic Bands) that are being used at WDW for entrance and charging are not running that smoothly, as are a lot of other Disney IT areas. As a veteran WDW park goer we’ve scaled WAY back and have no plans to return until they stop pulling crap like this.
Veteran Orlando visitors here, too, and I refuse to do any more RunDisney races (where I spend $300-$400 not counting hotel) until Disney addresses this issue in a satisfactory way.
We also hate the stupid Magic Bands.
My husband loves Disney and even he refuses.
Their prices just keep going up too. It’s nuts.
Yes, it is old news that the workers were laid off, but suing over the misuse of the visas is new. I hope the workers win, get damages and their jobs back. And that Disney loses customers from the bad publicity.
Just a guess: Is it because they have more and more rich visitors from overseas?
A few decades ago, we had some visitors (close relatives) to our family. They insisted on going there together with us (did not give us any other choice of vacation destination.)
They were financially responsible for flying to my home not in the state where Disney is at, and they “rented” a timeshare apartment. We were responsible for everything else (flying to/from the Disney, tickets to the park, car rental and meals mostly.)
It punched a big hole on our wallet. Fortunately, it was well before we needed to pay college tuitions.
Re: using non-Americans to replace American workers: Some time ago, a colleague told me that her husband worked for a nearby Fortune 100 company. She said her husband’s job in his later days with that company was to hand over what he knew about his job and trained overseas workers within the same company, and after he finished the handoff, he would then be let go. He also had to work at the time when his overseas counterparts were at work (at least some overlap of the work hours and days – e.g., came in on Sunday and took time off on Friday.) Exactly the same as what Disney did to their workers (if what was posted above is correct.)
So many people like to highlight the pay grade of Walmart employees , but ignore the practices of Disneyworld with their hiring and what they pay their employees. The cost for tickets, not to mention all the extras like simply buying a simple snack is so out of line.
out of line according to what?
apparently not according to all the people that pay to go there…?
It’s out of line for how they treat their employees.
I do not believe in boycotts that said if they did this it is really a jerky thing to do.(not word I would use to describe it…just keeping it PG)
one of my moms friends had to train her indian replacement to get a severance package. (computer stuff) the company flew a bunch of people from india to the united states …her department trained them…when training was complete the department closed and that department is now run out of india.
Training my replacement…right. One time. I said f off. They of course said I needed to be a team player;). So I quickly got another job. When replacement took over, it was way over her head and below her prestige level. So she quit. Poor thing.
Oh, and to rub salt in their wound, I got a 90% pay raise in the new job, which old boss called “a fluke”. He was a gem that one.
That was back in the late 90s. I don’t think it could be done so easily now. Employees have less “take this job and shove it” power. No one cares if the new robot or off shore-er is terrible at the task. They do it anyway until it falls apart. In the end, they save nothing, lose customers, lose the ppl who know how to clean it up. But that’s ok. They’ll just hire a few consultants who will tell them what to do, right?
Wow I sound bitter…
Part of the problem at the parks is uncontrolled growth-the quality of the employee (or Cast Member, as they’re known) has dropped substantially over the years simply because there are too many people needed at too many places to ensure you have a quality employee providing a quality experience. The three day training seminar (I think it was called Traditions) has been truncated to a three hour seminar.
Longtime cast members, responsible for much of the “pixie dust” that made WDW special, have left because of poor treatment by both corporate and guests. The guests are much more frustrated and stressed out (and broke) and they take that out on the often poorly trained cast members.
It’s an evil spiral that has pretty much extinguished the pixie dust in recent years. Add to that the constant building everywhere (every single park has a MAJOR construction project going on), and the lack of attention to maintenance (the Monorail breaks down so often now we avoid it-nothing like being stuck in a tin can for hours with no ac and screaming babies), and you have a big no thanks from us.
Whatever’s going on over there, it’s a pretty serious systemic problem throughout the company. (I used to be a moderator on a Disney website, so we spent a lot of time talking about it. I’m not over there much since we stopped visiting WDW).
The Mouse has become very obviously greedy-they’re not even trying to hide it.
For some reason that reminds me of the stories of people being forced at gunpoint to dig huge ditches, then being shot and buried in them.
What a despicable policy! Glad to hear that you told them what they could do with their “team player” concept.
“For some reason that reminds me of the stories of people being forced at gunpoint to dig huge ditches, then being shot and buried in them.”
That pretty much sums it up. H worked at Disney Studios>(on an off over 15 years ago.) Nothing they do ever surprises me. Then and now it’s an awful company to work for. And it’s been that way for a long long time.
When D was little, I used to grit my teeth when we took her to D-Land. I could not wait till she grew up and we didn’t have to either take her to the park or ever watch another Disney movie. Life is now good.
Always wondered how “train your replacement for when we fire you” policies can help a company. Seems like sabotage would be the order of the day.
“Oh and lunch is from 10-2–this is a great place to work!” “What is this little file I have? Just some client lists and phone numbers. You’ll have to get your own.” “What computer has the x files on it? Why none of them–I cleaned a few things up!” “Be sure to call the boss at least every 10 minutes–he loves to talk to his employees.”
S1 did a college internship at WDW. Because they took one class they did not have to pay minimum wage. They had to stay in company housing and paid an obscene amount for rent in 3 bedroom, 6 person apartments. We did not realize we were going to have to continue to support him until he finally cried uncle since he had no money for food. I lost a lot of respect for the company at that point.
I’d sabotage the training.
A close friend of mine had to train his Indian replacement also. Programming job.
DS13 in doing a co-op that required being a US citizen and being able to get a security clearance. While there is never any real job security in life, he is now thinking that after graduation if he gets a job that requires a security clearance it probably won’t be outsourced…
Remember when Michael Moore had a TV show back in the '90’s? I remember one segment was on Disney character people and how they formed a union. They basically wanted a chaperone at all times so they wouldn’t be run over by throngs of kids. I’m not sure if this was WDW or WDL, but I can guess that that union is not there anymore.
A friend’s sister worked there for a while and was pushed around by kids and was fired because her costume slipped a bit in the fracas and her elbow was exposed. An elbow! Clearly she’s not the REAL Minnie Mouse! Honestly…