An
Independent UK investigative article reveals some real complaints from employees of the Euro branch of the House of Mouse.
For many of the 14,500 people who work at the site, 20 miles east of the French capital, there is another, less magical side to the Magic Kingdom. "What we sell is something wonderful. We sell smiles. We sell the happiness of children. We all love our jobs, or what our jobs represent," said Hervé Saumade, 37, a maintenance man and union activist at the park. "But in the last few years, there has been a new management approach, which has, in many cases, made our working lives intolerable."
Since the beginning of the year, two Disneyland Paris employees have committed suicide. One of them, Franck, a cook at Disneyland for 10 years, killed himself on the day that he was supposed to return to the park after a long period of sickness. According to his father-in-law, he scratched a message on the wall of his home which read: "Je ne veux pas retourner chez Mickey" (I don't want to work for Mickey any more).
<snip>
The other employee, also a cook, killed himself in February after what one trade union, Force Ouvrière, insists was "humiliating" treatment at work. A Disney staff and management health committee investigation has found no evidence of work harassment. The moderate unions on the site – those most representative of the whole workforce – accuse Force Ouvrière of "exploiting" the two deaths in an attempt to win more support in delegate elections at the park later this year.
Even the moderate unions, however, insist that something has gone desperately wrong behind the scenes in the Magic Kingdom. Over the last five or six years, they say, a younger, mostly French, top management has taken over at Eurodisney, as the parent company is called.
The new management policies have resulted in longer hours and six-day weeks for many employees. Staff has been cut while the number of visitors to the park has increased. There has also been an alarming increase in industrial accidents: 1,500 per year - one accident per each 10 employees.
It's a pity that investigative journalism has almost disappeared in the United States, otherwise we might hear similar complaints from Disneyland and Disneyworld employees here. I would venture to guess conditions in the US are much worse.