Going to the NEA RA in Orlando. For many Disney workers it’s no Magic Kingdom.
Later this month I am in Orlando, Florida for the National Education Association’s Representative Assembly. I am an elected Retired delegate. I will also being attending the NEA Retired Conference that just precedes the RA.
The NEA brings a lot of people and a lot of money to wherever it holds its annual meeting. We are nearly 10,000 delegates and thousands of support staff. It is a big financial deal for the city where we meet, even for a mega-tourist town like Orlando.
I have been to the RA in Orlando before. The place resembles a company town.
And the company is Disney.
Old Walt Disney was born not far from my house here in Chicago.
He moved to Hollywood to seek his fame and fortune, first as a cartoonist and then as the head of his own film company and then a multi-national entertainment corporation.
But always a union-hater.
In 1941, the cartoonists working for Disney walked off the job in a strike for union recognition.
As Walt Disney turned his fashionable Packard roadster onto Buena Vista Blvd. he found the entrance to his studio ringed with a mob of 300 picketers and reporters. The protesters were his own cartoonists. Every couple of feet one stood on a soapbox and made angry speeches to passing picketers. Under the clear blue skies colorfully handpainted signs bobbed: DISNEY UNFAIR!, ONE GENIUS vs. 600 GUINEA PIGS, WE HAD NO SCABS AT SCHLESINGERS, LEONARDO, MICHELANGELO and TITIAN WERE UNION MEN, and a picture of Pluto with the title, ID RATHER BE A DOG THAN A SCAB!
The strike was long and bitter.
The strike lasted for nine weeks until Disney was at last compelled by Federal mediators, nationwide boycotts, his financiers the Bank of America and his brother Roy to give in and recognize the Guild. On Sept 21, 1941, everyone went back to work. Salaries doubled overnight for a 40-hour workweek and screen credits were established. The Screen Cartoonist Guild now represented 90% of Hollywood animation workers.
Walt Disney never changed. He remained a hater of unions and a backer of right-wing causes his entire life. A Koch brother of his day.
The Disney corporation has come a long way since Walt and his first drawing of Going to the NEA RA in Orlando. For many Disney workers it’s no Magic Kingdom. | Fred Klonsky:
