Workers at Disney World Hotels Approve Contract

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. —  Striking workers at two hotels on Walt Disney Co.’s Walt Disney World property approved a contract Sunday that will let many of them go back to work.

Teamsters Local 385, representing housekeepers, laundry workers, seamstresses and public area attendants at Walt Disney World’s Swan and Dolphin hotels, declared the strike two weeks ago in one of the rare labor disputes in Orlando’s tourism industry.

The contract covers 400 of the hotels’ 2,000 workers. Workers wanted a guaranteed work week, job assignments based on seniority, wages to match inflation and no medical insurance cutbacks.

Mike Stapleton, president of the union local, said the approved contract makes it easier for workers to file a grievance if they don’t get a 40-hour work week and gives workers an extra holiday. “We made changes that both sides can live with,” he said.

Treva Marshall, a spokeswoman for the hotels, said the contract was similar to one workers rejected twice previously with only “a couple of minor tweaks.” She refused to give details on the contract.

Workers had been hired to replace the striking workers, and the striking workers will be brought back on an “as-needed basis,” Marshall said.

Although the hotels are on Disney property, they are owned by Tishman Hotel Corp. and managed by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. They account for 2,267 of Orlando’s 108,000 hotel rooms.