There's no magical story of the orphaned Cinderella without her glitzy ballgown and fancy glass shoes. Without the colorful attire that sets them apart, classic Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are no more special than a mouse you might find roaming the streets or a duck wandering the edges of Lake Eola.
None of the intricate costuming for human performers and animatronics alike at Disney Parks materializes from thin air — or by magic, despite what the Fairy Godmother might claim.
In Orlando — a city that's driven by a low-wage tourism and service economy — those immaculate signature looks are carefully crafted by the costumers of Walt Disney World. They told Orlando Weekly that their union of 1,700 Disney World workers strong is demanding pay that fairly compensates them for their creations, placing them on par with their union siblings who are employed in other behind-the-scenes positions that are historically male-dominated.
Female workers represented by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 631 say that the "pink collar" work they perform at Disney World — patternmaking, alterations and sewing — is undervalued by Disney based on the skills their employer requires them to have.
The predominantly female workers are also compensated less than their mostly male peers who work as stage technicians. About 80% of the nearly 700 stage technicians at Disney World identify as male, according to data shared by the union. Starting wages for those tech and rigger jobs begin at $18 to $24.25, with a cap around $31 for the highest-paying job as a rigger.
That's in stark contrast to the costuming workforce, which is primarily made up of women and immigrants from East Asian and Latin American countries, who make Disney's minimum wage of $15 per hour to start.
"We're not birds and mice, playing and singing," said Robyn Morie, an operations sewing specialist at Disney World who met up with Orlando Weekly after her daytime shift. "We're working hard, and we're professionals. We just want to be treated like it."
STITCHING A STORY
Morie, who jokes she learned to sew in part to perform cosplay, studied as a creative writing major at the University of Central Florida and worked as a lifeguard at Disney for a time — a very different kind of physical labor — before vying for a costuming job.
Christine Martell, a shop steward for her union and a 23-year employee of Disney, previously worked for a mechanical company in Massachusetts. She learned to sew while she was pregnant, teaching herself how to do alterations. She put together some Barney the Dinosaur costumes that everyone fawned over, before she moved down to Florida and looked for work in sewing.
Prior to becoming a seamstress at Disney World, Cindy Hsu — a 28-year-old patternmaker who's worked a number of jobs for Disney since 2018 — worked in medicine for eight years as an acupuncturist, after earning a bachelor's degree in health sciences and nutrition and a master's degree in Chinese medicine. But she decided after a time to change course.
Being surrounded by illness day in and day out, was tough. "It was just really depressing on like, my mental state," Hsu admitted. At Disney, however, "I have to use my brain in a completely different way," said Hsu. She likes the creativity that's involved in her role. The internet, YouTube videos, and trial and error on her own helped her learn the skills she needed to get her foot in the door as a seamstress.
Others, according to Hsu — including cast members who came here from other countries — were fashion designers in a past life, couture shop owners, or worked in industrial factories. "We have a lot of people, specifically immigrant women, from other places who need to find a job where they can utilize their skill sets," said Hsu.
"It didn't matter if they had worked professionally in a factory, in a plant, at a tailor's or whatever. As long as they have the skills and they pass our sewing tests, they were able to apply and be a part of the company."
As far as what's required for the gig: a college degree in costuming? Unnecessary. A flashy résumé? Nah. But knowing your way around a needle and thread, or — let's face it, in 2023 — more sophisticated technology? Absolutely.
"Costuming is skilled labor," said Hsu, who makes around $20 per hour in her current position, on the higher end of the wage scale in costuming work.
But costuming workers say their wage scale, ranging from Disney's entry-level rate of $15 per hour to start to $28 for less than two dozen of the highest-paid costuming workers, reinforces a gender pay gap, since most of the costuming workers are women.
“Disney knows that they can take advantage of you, either because you have come from another country, or this is your dream and you want to be here.”
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According to the union's data, 82% of costuming workers (separated into 12 different job classifications) identify as female, including 93% of operations ("ops") sewing specialists, 92% of costuming assistants and 87% of construction sewing specialists — who are required to have knowledge in embroidery machines and software just to get hired.
And that's not all. Costuming workers must also undergo a three-hour, unpaid sewing assessment, according to several cast members, during which they must prove their skills in stitching, tailoring and alterations.
Cosmetologists, also a female-dominated workforce at Disney, are required to have a valid cosmetology license at the time of hire. Those jobs start at $16.90 per hour.
But securing and maintaining a job in Disney's costuming division requires a variety of skills.
Depending on your job classification, you're also expected to have solid communication skills, computer and data entry skills, an extensive knowledge of garment construction and alteration and more, according to job descriptions provided by Martell, one of the higher-paid construction sewing specialists.
They're tasked with managing a variety of small, large and sometimes dangerous machinery: cutters, knives, industrial irons, rising dress platforms — all to make the otherworldly, fantastical performances and appearances of Disney Parks' characters appear effortless.
Their work enables an escape from the everyday reality outside Disney's massive gates, helps create a space that's welcoming, comfortable and inclusive of visitors regardless of their age, race, ethnicity or political beliefs.
And it's not just like any other sewing job. At Disney, you're not making costumes solely for humans.
"We're dressing not only the characters and entertainers that are human beings," said Hsu, "we're dressing characters that are weird shapes. Like, Winnie the Pooh's outfit is not a common person-shape. We have costumers and patternmakers that deal with animatronics that are in no way a human shape."
Workers added that there's also little room for many to advance and climb up the pay scale.
Morie, who makes $15.30 per hour, said a worker's assigned spot on the scale doesn't change after they're hired, and it doesn't change with their seniority. "The scale is just an illusion of progress," she told Orlando Weekly wryly.
Hsu explained that the job level you're assigned — Constructing Sewing 1, 2 or 3, for example — is largely dependent on when you're hired, the demand for labor at that time and what job is available, regardless of your skill level.
You can do really, really well on the rigorous, three-hour test that's required during hiring, she said, but if the company doesn't have a higher-level position open, "They can only offer you whatever's available," said Hsu. "So it could be the lowest position."
That gets you Disney's entry-level wage of $15 per hour, equal to about $35,000 annually.
According to MIT's Living Wage Calculator, that’s not nearly enough to live on in the Orlando metro area as a single working adult with no dependents, let alone a working adult with children or other family members to take care of.
Yet, that sub-minimum living wage is the reality for many of the costuming workers Hsu knows who have been with the company for five or six years, due to a hiring freeze that occurred around that period, she said.
Le Lan, an operations sewing specialist who's worked at Disney for eight years, makes just $15.50 per hour. She, like many others in the tourism giant's cast, loves the work she does, but it's become increasingly difficult to make ends meet in Orlando on those wages.
Martell commutes to work from Clermont, which — with Orlando-area traffic — takes about an hour in the mornings, and then closer to an hour and a half to two hours to get home.
Many workers within the tourism industry don't make enough to live within Orlando city limits — or if they do, it's only if roomed up with others: strangers who become roommates, family members or fellow cast members — sometimes four or five to a place, according to Hsu.
"They're pricing out their own employees," said Morie, who lives in Millenia — the mall-adjacent Orlando neighborhood that's about a half-hour's drive to the Walt Disney World costuming warehouse, where they work in Vista East. "We have to move farther and farther away."
Average rent in Orlando has shot up 30% over the last three years, although those massive rent hikes are beginning to cool. Meanwhile, home purchases for your average working adult without generational wealth to cushion the cost are out of reach.
Morie, who's not making much more than she was just a few years ago (the union's last contract, raising Disney's minimum wage to $15 by 2021, helped) recently saw a $250 rent increase.
And each time her lease is up for renewal, she's worried she won't be able to afford it, or that she could become homeless with the lack of other affordable options around.
Bethany Kelly, who does patternmaking, said a lot of her fellow cast members work overtime — in part because of the demands of the job, but also because cast members need that extra money.
Of the 10-plus years she's worked at Disney, she said she's never worked less than 1,000 hours of overtime per year. The longest shift she's worked was from eight o'clock in the morning to 1:30 a.m. the following day.
"The show must go on, right?" Martell quipped in response to knowing chuckles from others in the group Orlando Weekly met up with at a park just a couple of miles from the Walt Disney World warehouse.
Workers risk injuries from all of the repetitive movements involved with their work. Plus the costumes that they're putting together and lifting are heavy — the skirt of a gown might weigh upward of 10 pounds, according to Martell.
It's a collaborative job. They work together. But it's also fast-paced and demanding.
It's not entry-level work.
"It's a lot of physical, hard labor," said Morie.
But workers say outside of contract negotiations with the union, it can feel impossible to try and ask for better. Especially when there's a language barrier, as is the case for some.
"We have a very predominant Spanish cast as well as a predominant Vietnamese cast," said Hsu. (The costumers, just like every other employee of the Disney Parks, are called "cast members.") Native English speakers, she added, are "very much the minority" in their group of stitchers.
"They're being taken advantage of because of their limited English skills," said Kelly, who first began working for the Mouse through the Disney College Program, after going to school in Chicago.
"It's like the ultimate patriarchy where like, Disney knows that they can take advantage of you, either because you have come from another country, or this is your dream and you want to be here," Kelly added.
Many of her fellow cast members have done this work for a long time.
Among the group of 10, workers reported that they'd worked at Disney for anywhere from three and a half years to 23 years, with a median tenure of eight years.
Some didn't go to college, or earned a degree outside of the United States. Kelly — who did earn a degree in fashion — said that even so, many of those workers know more about the work, the intricacies of it all, than she does.
"They're not getting what they deserve," she said.
INDUSTRY-WIDE SOLIDARITY
According to their union president Paul Cox, who works as an entertainment tech for Disney's ESPN Wide World of Sports, their union siblings in stagehand and technician work agree.
"If we are all sisters, brothers and kin with each other, then we all need to be treated equitably when it comes to how we're treated at work, how we're compensated," Cox told Orlando Weekly.
While higher pay is a priority of all six of the Disney World labor unions at large as they negotiate a new contract with their employer, closing the gender pay gap for the pink collar workers represented by IATSE Local 631 is the union's No. 1 priority.
Ahead of contract negotiations with Disney that kicked off last fall, Cox surveyed members of IATSE Local 631 to identify what they felt was most important to address in their next contract.
Closing the pay gap between historically female-dominated jobs and male-dominated jobs was the top issue, he said, followed by higher wages in general.
Cox, who's served as president of Local 631 for about six years, said a gender pay gap within the behind-the-scenes work of entertainment isn't just a Disney issue — it's industry-wide.
And it's something his union today (if not always in the past, he'll admit) takes very seriously.
"There's been a major attempt in almost every contract across the Alliance [IATSE] to align that thinking and have employers recognize the issues that exist, and have existed, and work on pathways to correct them," he said.
But Disney Parks, he says, refuses to acknowledge it's a problem.
"Their statement has been, they don't pay men and women within the same [job] classification differently," said Cox.
Which isn't the point.
"We're saying that they pay equal skills differently based upon historic gender stereotypes," Cox said.
But when the union brings that up, the company reverts back to their same statement: We don't pay women less than men within their job classifications.
Walt Disney World did not respond to Orlando Weekly's requests for comment on this story.
"It's definitely hurtful," said Hsu. "I think a lot of people are a little appalled by how little costuming makes," she added. During the pandemic, a lot of cast members' roles shifted.
They stepped into the shoes of custodial workers, merchandising, whatever was needed. They met and talked to a lot of other cast members throughout the parks.
"We realized that we were getting paid really the same amount as an entry-level job here at Disney World. And it's very unacceptable," Hsu said.
Some stitchers work two or more jobs to make ends meet. When workers were furloughed early on in the pandemic, Hsu went back to work in medicine for a time. It helped pay the bills.
Morie, the UCF grad, said her union's held strong and firm in their demand for Disney to close the gender wage gap (whether the company acknowledges its existence or not). "The mentality that we've had for these negotiations is we're all in it together. We're not leaving anybody behind," she said. "We all deserve to have a roof over our head and food in our fridge."
Cox says closing the gender pay gap is possible, and it's even been done by Disney before: in Disney Theatrical Productions, also known as Disney on Broadway.
IATSE's International union and their locals have dozens of agreements with Disney Theatrical Productions, according to a union spokesperson, and wage rates within those can vary based on production size and other factors.
But a document outlining minimum contractual rates for entertainment workers covered by Touring Disney Theatrical Productions' "Pink" Contract shows that department heads in carpentry and wardrobing, for example, are afforded the same minimum rates.
The same goes for assistants in wardrobing, carpentry and electrician stagehands.
Cox said that, based on wage and hour calculations, Local 631 estimates that closing the gender pay gap for his union siblings at Disney World in Orlando would cost the company $5 million.
That'd be a small sliver of the $28 billion-with-a-B Disney Parks made in revenue last year. It's a small portion of the $20 million in severance Disney tossed at former CEO Bob Chapek — one guy! — before kicking him to the curb in November. It's just a fraction of the $27 million pay package Disney CEO Bob Iger is expected to make annually over the next couple years. (Could Iger alter Belle's iconic golden ballgown at a moment's notice? Or hustle to finish alterations for Disney Cruise Line costuming before they set back out to the seas? Doubtful.)
While Disney recently announced 7,000 layoffs company-wide, Disney Parks is one of the multinational company's most profitable divisions, and those layoffs aren’t expected to touch the parks' frontline workers. In fact, they’re actively hiring.
Disney employees last week rallied in support of a contract that would deliver a living wage to the roughly 45,000 workers at Disney Parks in Orlando, represented by the Service Trades Council Union — a coalition of six labor unions, including IATSE Local 631.
An overwhelming majority of cast members — 96% — recently rejected Walt Disney World's last offer of a $1 raise for most this year, even though some workers would have gotten more. A new tentative agreement reached with Disney last week that's set for a vote on Wednesday would offer a $3 per hour minimum pay raise this year for all workers covered by the STCU contract, and $5.50 minimum through Oct. 2026.
Toiling away at the Walt Disney World warehouse about 20 miles northeast of the "Most Magical Place on Earth," Disney's seamstresses and patternmakers want their employer to know, as they ask for pay that's commensurate with their skills, that they aren't just an employee identification number.
They stick with the job because it is, if not a labor of love, then an opportunity to bring joy to the life of others, utilizing skills they know are valuable to their employer.
They stick with it because they are a union — and they strive for better together.
"We give everything we have," said Morie. People like herself work at Disney because they love it, she added. "We think it can be better, and we're fighting to make it so."
