A leading third-party restaurant operator at Disney Springs and Epcot, the Patina Group, reached a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board last month in a two-year case involving multiple allegations of federal labor law violations.
The case stems from an organizing drive launched in 2024 by workers at five nonunion Patina Group restaurants at Disney Springs: Morimoto Asia, Pizza Ponte, Maria & Enzo’s, The Edison and Enzo’s Hideaway.
Key leaders of this organizing drive include workers like Kristen Mercer, a hospitality industry veteran who currently works as a server at Maria & Enzo’s.
She said her motivation to organize a union is driven in part by the difficulties affording health insurance for a chronic illness. She doesn’t receive health benefits through her job at Disney Springs and is currently managing health issues herself after being priced out of the Affordable Care Act marketplace. “I’m in this Catch-22 situation of going without insurance right now,” she told Orlando Weekly.
The Disney Springs restaurant employees asked the Patina Group for a fair process to organize a union with Unite Here Local 737 in an effort to secure the same benefits, pay and union protections as their Disney-employed counterparts represented by the same union.
Shortly after they began organizing, however, the union filed complaints with the NLRB alleging that the Patina Group was unlawfully surveilling workers at Disney Springs restaurants and the Patina-owned Space 220 restaurant at Epcot to determine if they were engaging in union activity, threatening to not promote workers who were involved in organizing, and coercing them against unionization.
The Patina Group also fired a young server at the time who was vocally supportive of the unionization effort and had also spoken out about sexual harassment on the job.
Several Orange County commissioners, outgoing State Rep. Anna Eskamani, and U.S. Congressman Maxwell Frost urged the Patina Group to investigate and remedy the situation.
“The longevity of these fights is on purpose,” Eskamani said at a press conference organized by Local 737 this summer. “They want you to give up, they want you to move on, they want you to say, ‘never mind, I’ll just continue on [with] the status quo.’ And so it further demonstrates why unions are so important.”
In June, the NLRB’s general counsel finally ordered The Patina Group — two years after complaints were filed — to cease and desist its intimidatory tactics, to rehire the server, Julie Ruiz, and to provide her back pay.
The Patina Group initially indicated it would not comply. A trial date was set for Sept. 15, but before the case could go to trial, the Patina Group agreed to a settlement that includes back pay for Ruiz, although the union declined to specify the amount.
“We’re very proud of her for keeping to it,” said Mercer, who said she hugged and cried with Ruiz when they heard the news. “We’ve been by her side through it the whole time, with continuing this pressure on the company, and letting them know that what they did wasn’t OK.”
Ruiz herself — who has struggled with an unstable housing situation and gotten by largely through work with the union since her firing — was not available for comment.
As part of its settlement with the union, the Patina Group emailed its employees at Disney Springs last month to confirm they have the right to form or join a union and posted physical notices in early October of employees’ organizing rights in break rooms.
“YOU HAVE THE RIGHT to freely communicate with co-workers about UNITE HERE LOCAL 737 (the Union) or any other union and about rates of pay, wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment, and WE WILL NOT do anything to interfere with your exercise of that right,” the notice reads, in part.
Under the NLRB’s order, the physical notices must remain posted in employee areas for 60 days.
“Oh, it’s very validating,” Lauren Hewitt, another server at Maria & Enzo’s who supports the unionization effort, told Orlando Weekly. “The work group chat was like, lit up that day,” she added.
Orlando Weekly reached out to the Patina Group for comment on the settlement last week, but did not receive a response, even after a spokesperson initially acknowledged our request.
Walt Disney Co., staff of which have been questioned numerous times by Orlando Weekly on the allegations against the Patina Group, has largely stayed out of the fight — despite a demand by workers to drop its contractual agreements with the Patina Group over its alleged labor law violations.
Walt Disney World, which employs tens of thousands of unionized employees, will be negotiating its own employees’ union contract in 2028.
