The Happiest Place to Work? : For many in its ‘cast’ of thousands, the theme park is no longer the fantasy land that lured them to take jobs. For some, it’s a low-paying world, after all.

The same magical allure that draws millions of visitors to Disneyland every year brought Craig Vandiggelen to the park’s employment office after his 18th birthday.

Nineteen years later, the park custodian shrugs at his job. “It had its moments,” he says blandly. “As of right now, I’ll probably put in 20 [years], and after that, we’ll just see.”

For more than a few workers at the Magic Kingdom, the magic of being a “cast member” has faded, and restlessness and discontent have set in. That presents a thorny problem for Disneyland management and the unions that represent workers at the park.

More than any other theme park, Disneyland has built its enormous success on the ubiquitous smiles and personable customer service from its staff--who on average are older, more experienced and better trained than others in comparable jobs elsewhere, company reports and outside experts indicate.

But as the recent stir over the labor contract showed, there are a fair number of glum employees at the “Happiest Place on Earth.” Over the last two months, more than 740 union workers, representing a majority of those voting, twice rejected a contract offer that included a 3% annual wage increase, which is not bad for these times.

“We have a group of members who don’t believe or trust Disney and aren’t so sure about the unions either,” said Mort Baum, a field director at the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. Baum and other union leaders, who had unanimously endorsed the offer, finally decided last week to accept the contract proposal anyway, taking the rare step of overriding members’ votes.

Disneyland management won’t comment about those who repudiated the contract. But spokesman Tom Brocato said: “I would say [workers] are very happy with their jobs; we have a very loyal group of employees.”

Certainly, many Disneyland employees do enjoy their work. “I like my job, that’s why I’ve spent 30 years here,” said Bob Fleetwood, a foreman (or “lead” in Disney-speak) in the camera shop on Main Street.

But many who like their jobs aren’t satisfied with their pay or increasing workload. And even if the disgruntled bunch were isolated to those who voted against the contract--who account for a fraction of Disneyland’s total work force of 9,000 to 12,000 a year--they still represent a sizable group of workers who have daily contact with customers, as ticket takers, rider operators, food servers and merchandise clerks.

“There is some long-term concern at Disneyland that it’s going to spill over into the workplace,” said an informed labor analyst who believes the labor atmosphere isn’t one of “burning anger” but “frustration.”

Such feelings, workers and observers say, have been seething for the last decade, as Disneyland’s parent firm, Walt Disney Co., has enjoyed unparalleled success.

And this year, those feelings boiled over in the ballot box.

Though the contract offer was better than the industry norm, union workers didn’t see it that way. Instead, they viewed the proposal against this backdrop: Disney preparing to spend billions to buy Capital Cities/ABC and other acquisitions such as the 502-room Pan Pacific Hotel near Disneyland; Disney on its way to another year of record profits, boosted by a surge in attendance at theme parks, perhaps notably Disneyland, which is expected to record its best year ever.

“It’s kind of hard to understand when they’re making record profits,” said a longtime food-service worker, who requested anonymity. “For me, 3% is 33 cents [an hour]--after all these years on the job. It’s kind of embarrassing to talk about. You can’t even fill up your car with gas every week.”

*

Most of the 3,000 union workers covered under Disneyland’s so-called master services contract earn $7 to $12 an hour, the unions say. The average hourly pay, according to company reports, is $9.20. The starting pay at most of these jobs is $6.78 an hour.

About 48% of these union workers qualify for health insurance and the company pension plan.

Other benefits, which are available also to some non-regular employees, include nine paid holidays a year and up to four weeks of paid vacation for those with 15 or more years of service.

Disneyland is one of the few fully unionized theme parks in the country. Other non-union parks, including nearby Knott’s Berry Farm and Six Flags, won’t comment about wages.

Labor analysts and industry consultants, though, agree that the compensation package at Disneyland is slightly better than those at other major theme parks, though others appear to be catching up to Disneyland. (Workers at the larger Walt Disney World in Florida, which is also unionized, generally earn less than their counterparts at Disneyland.)

But it isn’t just about pay. Disneyland workers complain that they are being pushed harder to perform more, that they feel loyalty is less appreciated, that the environment has changed from family to corporate, and that the company is trying to subcontract out more jobs.

“Morale has never been lower,” said David Koenig, author of “Mouse Tales,” a 1994 book about Disneyland. Part of it, Koenig thinks, is that workers at Disneyland remember when the park was smaller, when Walt Disney walked around and talked to them. Plus there are memories of the 22-day strike in 1984--the only one in the park’s 40-year history--and when pay was frozen during a few years in the last decade.

“This last contract,” Koenig said, “I think they voted it down not because it wasn’t fair, but because of the way they’ve been treated over the last few years.”

*

While such hard feelings are hardly uncommon in corporate workplaces today, they may be all the more pronounced because this is Disneyland--where workers can get caught up in the mystique of being at a special place.

Indeed, a popular slogan among workers is, “We make the magic.” And Disneyland itself fosters that notion that its workers aren’t ordinary employees; they are “cast members” who are not at work but “on stage or backstage.”

So it is not surprising that workers have unusually high expectations of their employer.

Sue Kemp, 42, remembers why she waited a whole year to get a permanent job as a “merchandise hostess” at Disneyland. “It was the place to work in Orange County,” she said. “If you worked at Disneyland, you were somebody special.”

In her early years, Kemp recalls, “It was great. We used to have so much fun. Supervisors participated with you more. . . . We would talk. It was just a much more relaxed atmosphere.”

These days, Kemp feels, “there’s just so much expected of you.” And then there’s her pay, $10.99 an hour, which she says isn’t enough to buy a home for her family. Without her employee pass, she added, “I couldn’t afford to go to Disneyland.”

Said Mort Baum, Kemp’s union leader: “You have a group of people who went to Disney with inflated expectations . . . Disney has that cachet to it. They look around and say, “How did I get to this? I’m not sharing in the profits, in the dream.”’

Jamie Sessions, another union representative, says he plans to make the rounds at the park more frequently to build members’ trust and a stronger bargaining unit. In the recent contract votes, about 50% of the members did not cast ballots, and those who did failed to reject by the two-thirds margin needed to authorize a strike.

“If the workers want more, they have to be willing to fight for it,” he said.

*

But building stronger unity among the Disneyland workers won’t be easy. For one thing, there are more and more job classifications; under the latest contract, new hires won’t be eligible for retiree health and welfare benefits. Also, unlike most other amusement parks, which are staffed mainly by teen-agers or college students, Disneyland has a mix of career and short-time employees.

The average age of a Disneyland worker covered under the master services contract is 30.5, and the average length of service is 6.1 years, with more than 535 workers having been at the park 11 or more years, according to company reports.

Younger workers at Disneyland don’t seem to be quite as frustrated or have the expectations of their older co-workers.

Like many others, Fred Volland, 24, took a job at Disneyland straight out of high school in 1989. “When you’re a kid in high school, you think, hey, it’s a cool place to work,” he said.

But Volland has no illusions about his job and what it will bring him in the future. “I can see how they feel,” he said of some of the veteran employees. “But you got to look at it from a business [standpoint]. . . . It would be nice to get a 10% raise. But if I were running the company, I wouldn’t want to give that.”

Volland, who makes $8.50 an hour busing tables at the Tomorrowland Terrace, says those wages have helped him pay for his studies at Cal State Long Beach, from where he will soon graduate.

“I’ve thought of making Disneyland a career, but I didn’t want to pick up trash all my life.”

*

So far, the labor discord at Disneyland doesn’t appear to have spilled over into the park--at least not judging by its performance.

The park’s 40th year has been exceptional, thanks largely to the new Indiana Jones ride and the improved tourism climate in the region. Though Disneyland won’t provide attendance, company documents showed that during a single week in June, the park had 326,476 visitors--20% higher than the same week in 1994.

Dennis Spiegel, president of International Theme Park Services Inc., a consultant in Cincinnati, credits Disneyland’s unique success to its continued emphasis on cleanliness, quality and employee training, which is renowned.

If they face labor worries, Spiegel advises, Disneyland may be able to allay them by providing better benefits. But in many ways, he says, its workplace challenges reflect the maturation of a business and industry, which is no older than Disneyland.

“They’re still heads above everybody else,” Spiegel said.

Even so, in employee break areas behind Main Street and in a basement in Tomorrowland, in places hidden from public view, worker murmurings can clearly be heard.

“It prevents us from looking at it as a long-term job, because there is nothing to look forward to,” said custodian Denise Taylor. Others say they see more apathy among employees.

Whether that’s true or not, employees and their union leaders alike acknowledge that something needs to be done to mend the relationship between Disneyland’s workers and their company and unions. If not, warns a labor expert familiar with Disneyland’s situation, “They’re going to have some messy problems.”

Baum, the union leader, says it’s up to both the unions and the company to deal with the problem. In the next three years, he said, the task “is to tear down that wall of miscommunication, mistrust, and redirect the people to working together for a common goal.”

Times correspondent Dan Margolis contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Disneyland Union Employee Profile

The Disneyland work force that recently voted on a new union contract has worked there an average of six years, about double that at other theme parks:

* Number affected: 3,000 of 9,000 employees

* Average hourly pay: $9.20

* Average age: 30.5

Workweek

Full time (40 hours): 20%

20-39 hours: 22

1-19 hours: 58

Ethnicity

White: 77%

Latino: 14

Asian: 7

Black: 2

Sex

Male: 53%

Female: 47

Years of Service

0-5: 65%

6-10: 17

11-15: 6

16-20: 7

21-30: 5

Park Attendance

Although attendance was off last year, Disneyland’s new Indiana Jones ride is expected to create a surge of visitors through 1995. Annual attendance in millions: (see newspaper for chart)

Source: Amusement Business magazine, Disney Co. reports

Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times