Rififi (and Loulou?) in Marne-la-Vallée. If Donald Duck’s nephews risk headaches this summer, it won’t just be because of the heat wave. Indeed, this Tuesday, nearly 1,000 employees were on strike at Disneyland Paris. A situation that could continue. It is in a tense social context that the amusement park, which celebrated its thirtieth birthday in 2022, opened its doors. In the early morning, there were several hundred of them parading on Main Street, in front of the Sleeping Beauty Castle, the place of the usual parade of characters from the fairy world.
Nearly 10% of employees on strike
If the stickers of the unions and the yellow vests have replaced the costumes of Bernard and Bianca, it is because the employees have been demanding improvements in their working conditions and remuneration for several weeks.
Already on May 23, more than 500 of them “disengaged”. This Tuesday, their number stands at 1,200 and 1,500 according to the unions, 954 according to the management of the park. Not an easy task for a park that has 17,000 employees.
The first of their demands relates to adapted schedules. Implemented in 2020, this system allows park management to organize and modify employee schedules as needed. A hyperflexibility suffered by employees according to Ahmed Masrour, UNSA union representative: “It’s a real suffering. We sometimes travel for a few hours, often staggered, with different schedules from one day to the next. “A disaster for health as for family life,” agrees Fabien Beiersdorff, secretary general of CGT Disney.
The proposals of the park management too far from the claims
The other part of the demands is financial. An increase of 200 euros net monthly, the doubling of pay on Sundays and the revaluation of mileage allowances. “We ask that these are also doubled,” explains Fabien Beiersdorff.
Requests which were refused by the management during an exceptional meeting between the management and the trade unions last Friday, as Ahmed Masrour explains: “All they are offering us is a bonus of 125 euros and a ahead of our 13th month. It’s completely above ground. »
A confirmed proposal to 20 minutes by the management of the park, which assures us of “maintaining the dialogue”. She adds to this “monthly payment of the 13th month”, that the strikers were offered to monetize rest days and overtime which would be added to the profit-sharing bonus paid in two times 500 euros gross last November and January .
2.4 billion euros in turnover in 2022
Offers to add to the “efforts” made in 2022: “a range of measures which made it possible to increase the lowest salary and bonus coefficients”, which would have generated a “9% salary increase for 82% employees “. To this, she adds a freeze on catering prices for employees “despite the increase in the cost of raw materials with inflation”.
“Scoops, reacts Ahmed Masrour, they make fun of us. On the one hand, they just offer us to sell our holidays, on the other, they put forward the inflation that they refuse to compensate us for. ” Because the improvements of 2022 are overwhelmed by inflation according to Fabien Beiersdorff: ” It was a question of catching up on the delay on the previous years. Since then, our purchasing power has further melted. »
An incongruity for the employees of the park which made an operating profit of 47 million euros in 2022, for a record turnover of 2.4 billion euros.
Summer of the park in play
Also, the strikers urgently demand the opening of new negotiations. Company negotiations are still scheduled for the end of the year, as management confirms. “Then they will have new mobilizations,” replies Fabien Beiersdorff, who plans a new day of mobilization this Thursday.
But this difficulty of communication between the two camps could tarnish the image of Disneyland. Because if the management ensures that the mobilization “does not impact the proper functioning of the park” which received 15 million visitors in 2022, the story is different on the side of the unions which ensure that they will not let go “as long as the general management remains deaf and insensitive to the daily lives of families and to the private and professional lives of employees”.
What next for the movement?
“The employees on strike come from all the professions of the park: Security, shops, catering, stocks, entertainment, etc. “, details Ahmed Masrour. “The number of strikers is growing hour by hour, notes Fabien Beiersdorff before adding, we will see if this will not have an impact when visitors are greeted every day by our demands. »
Even the CFTC declared, in a press release, “to support these protest movements by employees within the company”. Movements whose continuation will be decided this Tuesday evening during an exceptional general assembly. The only certainty is that all the unions are determined to pursue their demands, according to Ahmed Masrour: “We can mobilize every day of the summer if necessary. The next visitors can therefore expect to attend a new and most original attraction this summer.