• Between 1,000 and 1,500 employees went on strike on Tuesday, May 30 to demand an improvement in their working conditions and an increase in their income.
  • If the management assures to have already made efforts in 2022, the employees answer that they are insufficient in the face of inflation that hurts their purchasing power.
  • Without urgent negotiations with the park's management, the unions promise animation this summer at the amusement park.

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, on 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 blew out its thirty candles in 2022, opened its doors. In the early morning, they were several hundred to parade on Main Street, in front of the Sleeping Beauty Castle, place of the usual parade of characters of 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 had "walked out". 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.


Inter-union action this morning at Disneyland ⤵️pic.twitter.com/7n5UiQnNeB

— The CGT (@lacgtcommunique) May 30, 2023

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The first of their demands concerns adapted hours. Implemented in 2020, this system allows park management to organize and modify employee schedules as needed. A hyperflexibility that employees suffer according to Ahmed Masrour, UNSA union delegate: "It is 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," abounds Fabien Beiersdorff, general secretary of the CGT Disney.

The proposals of the park management too far from the demands

The other part of the demands is financial. An increase of 200 euros net monthly, the doubling of the pay on Sundays and the revaluation of mileage allowances. "We are asking for these to be doubled as well," explains Fabien Beiersdorff.

These demands were refused by management during an exceptional meeting between management and trade unions last Friday, as Ahmed Masrour explains: "All they offer us is a bonus of 125 euros and an advance on our 13th month. It's completely above ground. »

A proposal confirmed to 20 Minutes by the Park Management which ensures "maintain the dialogue". It adds to this "monthly payment of the 13th month", that the strikers were offered to monetize rest days and overtime that would be added to the profit-sharing bonus paid in two instalments 500 euros gross last November and January.

€2.4 billion turnover in 2022

Offers to be added to the "efforts" made in 2022: "a range of measures that increased the lowest wage and bonus coefficients", which would have generated a "9% wage increase for 82% of employees". To this, it adds a freeze on restaurant prices for employees "despite the increase in raw material costs with inflation".

"Measuring sticks," reacts Ahmed Masrour, "they laugh at us. On the one hand they just offer us to sell our holidays on the other, they advance inflation that they refuse to compensate us. According to Fabien Beiersdorff, the improvements in 2022 are overwhelmed by inflation: "It was a question of catching up on previous years. Since then, our purchasing power has melted again. »

An incongruity for the employees of the park, which achieved an operating profit of 47 million euros in 2022, for a record turnover of 2.4 billion euros.

Summer of the park at stake

The strikers are therefore urgently demanding the opening of new negotiations. Company negotiations still scheduled for the end of the year as confirmed by the management. "Then they will have new mobilizations," says 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 sound of bell is different on the side of the unions who ensure that they will not let go "as long as the general management remains deaf and insensitive to the daily lives of families and the private and professional lives of employees".

What happens next to the movement?

"The striking employees come from all trades in the park: security, shops, catering, stocks, animation, etc.", details Ahmed Masrour. "The number of strikers is growing by the hour," says Fabien Beiersdorff before adding, "we will see if this will not have an impact when visitors are welcomed every day by our demands. "


Even the CFTC declared, in a statement, "support these movements of protests of employees within the company". Movements whose continuation will be decided this Tuesday evening at 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 attraction of the most original this summer.

  • Local
  • Paris
  • Ile
  • Disney
  • Disneyland
  • Strike
  • Inflation
  • Employment
  • Work