Thousands of Disneyland employees vote for a possible strike. It would be the first in 40 years.

Starting at midnight, Cyn Carranza polishes, cleans, waxes and scrubs the floors of Disneyland so that guests feel as if no one had been there before them the next morning.

But after her shifts near a sparkling Sleeping Beauty castle, she went “home” in her car for about four months last year because her salary, combined with income from two other jobs, was not enough to rent an apartment with a bed.

Now negotiations over better wages and working conditions for Carranza and thousands of other Disneyland employees have become so chaotic that on Friday thousands voted overwhelmingly in favor of a possible strike.

Now that the vote is complete, it’s up to union leadership to decide whether to hold such a vote, which would be the first at Disney’s original resort in 40 years.

“Today, Disneyland Park employees made their voices heard by voting to give the Disney Workers Rising bargaining committee the authority to call a strike to protest unfair labor practices, 99% of the time,” UFCW Local 324 said in a statement. “We stood up and showed Disney that we will not stand by and allow them to intimidate, surveil and unlawfully discipline employees for exercising their rights.”

CNN has asked the Walt Disney Company for comment on the vote.

Disneyland officials previously said there were plans in place to allow the parks to continue operating at expected levels of service in the event of a strike.

Union leaders said the strike, if it goes ahead, would likely be of limited duration, unlike the indefinite strikes by actors and writers unions that have halted film and television production at Disney and other media and technology companies for much of 2023.

Votes to authorize strikes are common and usually pass overwhelmingly, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a strike will happen, as happened with the Teamsters at UPS last year.

Officially, this potential strike is about Disney banning the wearing of union badges in the workplace, but the real concern among rank-and-file workers is that the current union contract, many believe, does not provide a living wage.

A dream of affordability

Carranza’s wages at Disneyland are just over $20 an hour, including the difference for the night shift. Her work is arduous, often requiring her to lug 200 meters of PVC hose and use heavy machinery to polish the floors.

“It’s annoying that the balloons we sell in the park are more expensive than what I earn in an hour. I have to work an hour and a half if I want to afford one of these Disney balloons,” Carranza said.

The story goes on

As of April 1, the minimum wage for fast-food workers in California is $20 an hour, impacting other industries competing for the same workers. Voters in the city of Anaheim in Orange County, California, where the Disneyland Resort is located, had previously approved a measure requiring a minimum wage of $19.90 for resort employees starting in January 2024.

But in a district where the average rent in 2022 was $2,251 a month and about 10% of residents live in poverty, workers said a wage of about $20 an hour is still not enough.

After living in a car, Carranza moved into a hotel because she could not afford the security deposit or the first and last month’s rent on an apartment.

Today she shares an apartment with a roommate.

The changes at the Disneyland Resort – and housing affordability in Southern California in general – are of great concern to Coleen Palmer, who has worked at the Disneyland Resort for 37 years.

When she first started, Palmer says her monthly salary of about $650 allowed her to rent a two-bedroom apartment for $400 a month on her own. Today, she rents a one-bedroom apartment for just over $2,000 a month and limits her grocery shopping to the $2,800 she brings home each month. That’s on top of utilities, groceries, phone bills, medical care and other fixed costs. To save on gas, she only drives to work and buys things like chicken to share with her dog.

“Sometimes it feels really devastating. It makes me question my self-worth. And sometimes I think to myself, is it worth it? Should I go somewhere else? But I’m still a few years away from retirement,” Palmer said. She said she plans to persevere, mostly because she loves the job. She loves talking to kids about what they did at the park and telling them they were brave to try the rides.

Palmer is happy that low-wage workers are getting a raise because of the city’s minimum wage law. Those who earn a little more and have decades of experience, however, have not received a raise. Palmer said she makes just under $24 an hour after nearly four decades, while an entry-level worker makes $19.90 an hour.

Disneyland officials said wages have increased more than 40 percent over the past five years, but much of that increase is due to changes in the state and local minimum wage.

Escaping reality instead of facing it

A strike would involve around 9,500 employees at Disneyland Park, whose collective agreement currently expires in June.

Another 4,500 employees in the same bargaining unit work in the Downtown Disney shopping and dining district, in Disney hotels or at the resort’s other theme park, Disney California Adventure. Their contracts expire in September and they are not part of the current strike developments.

Together they represent about 40% of the resort’s total workforce. But for now, only Disneyland Park employees will vote and take part in a strike.

The unions and Disneyland have scheduled two more meetings for Monday and Tuesday.

These groups do not include the character and parade actors who organized in May as part of the Actors’ Equity Association and have not yet begun their negotiation process.

Officially, this possible strike would involve union buttons with the raised Mickey fist.

SEIU-USWW, Teamsters Local 495, UCFW Local 324 and BCTGM Local 83 filed charges against Disney with the National Labor Relations Board in June, alleging hundreds of cases of unlawful discipline, intimidation and surveillance of union members who wore the buttons at work.

The NLRB is expected to investigate the allegations over the next few months, after which a regional NLRB director could decide whether a hearing in the case is appropriate.

Disneyland officials told CNN that wearing union badges violates the park’s uniform rules and that only a “handful” of employees have been disciplined.

Disneyland officials said in a statement that the parks strive to provide guests with “an uninterrupted, immersive experience” and that “anything that detracts from the show or story, be it an unauthorized button, pin or sticker worn by a cast member, would be addressed by a supervisor.”

The term “Cast Member” refers to any Disney employee, as the company views every guest experience as a performance. Each employee works to create a space where guests can escape reality and put aside their skepticism to feel, for example, like they’re really on a Star Wars planet. For the same reason, Cast Members are not allowed to talk about people under the characters’ costumes, as this would destroy the facade.

Disney’s policy requires that a supervisor ask the employee to remove the union button to preserve the integrity of the “show.” Only repeated violations warrant disciplinary action, starting with a verbal warning.

CNN’s Chris Isidore and Paradise Afshar contributed reporting.

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