The “happiest place on earth” is making its employees pretty angry.
According to a report in the Associated Press, Mickey, Minnie Mouse and the rest of the 1,200 character actors at Walt Disney World in Florida are accusing the theme park of violating their constitutional rights.
From AP:
Teamsters Local 385 said in the complaint that Disney was committing an unfair labor practice. A grievance was filed last week with the company. The two-week-old written policy prevents actors from publicly revealing in social media or traditional media which characters they play, according to the union.
Character actors at the park who violate the policy could be fired for doing so. The recording secretary for the union Donna-Lynne Dalton explained that employees are worried that they will be punished for having revealed themselves as their respective characters before the policy was instated.
“The performers are very concerned because you can’t un-tell somebody something,” Dalton explained. “They have family and friends that already know this and have pictures of themselves in their performing roles. It’s out there.”
And, while she acknowledged the need for the actors to maintain “character integrity,” Dalton emphasized that actors ultimately need to be able to reveal their roles so that they can book future gigs.
“I believe in character integrity and not destroying the magic, but these are performers,” she said. “A performer who plays Santa Claus and wants work, he goes out there and says, ‘I played Santa Claus.'”
Nevertheless, spokeswoman for Disney Jacquee Wahler insisted that it has been a “longstanding expectation” of characters at the park to keep their identities under wraps.
“We’re proud of the role characters play in guest experience,” affirmed Wahler. “This is in line with our longstanding expectation for cast members to uphold character integrity.”
The president of Teamsters Local 385 Mike Stapleton maintained that Disney is infringing on the actors’ constitutional rights by trying to censor their posts on social media.
“The company doesn’t have the right to control social media postings,” said Stapleton. “Suddenly the company wants to pretend there aren’t people behind those costumes and the Constitution doesn’t extend to the theme park.”
It’s safe to say the characters are looking for a whole new world (or at least a whole new workplace).
