UNITE-HERE Disney Workers End One Hunger Strike And Start Another

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/12972

Submitted by Doug Cunningham on February 18, 2010 - 3:45pm
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Disney workers in California have “passed the fast” straight to the gates of the House of Mouse. Jesse Russell reports:

Disney workers represented by UNITE-Here ended a seven day hunger strike in front of Disney’s Grand Floridian Hotel on Tuesday, joined seven hundred workers and supporters in a march down Disneyland Drive, and handed off the hunger strike to five workers waiting in front of the company’s corporate headquarters in Burbank. The union said the hunger strike is being held to call attention to what it says is Disney’s “greedy attempts to make healthcare unaffordable for many.”

Progressive Christians UIniting Executive Director Reverend Peter Laarman spoke at the rally on Tuesday:

: If a worker here makes under $400 per week for 40 hours how dare the company say that that person, if he or she has a family, should pay more than one-fourth of his or her monthly earnings for health insurance.

UNITE-Here President John Wilhelm said that due to the failure of the federal and state government to pass meaningful healthcare reform it falls on the backs of employers to do the right thing for employees.

: Willingly or unwillingly it is left to corporations to deal with health care, to deal with safety on the job.

Wilhelm added that people who run corporations need to remember the people who do the work to make the corporation thrive.

: They don’t carry the bangs, cut the food, serve the drinks, make the rooms, scrub the floors. People who run these corporations, they don’t do that – you do that.