Walt Disney recently announced an additional layoff of 4,000 employees by the end of March 2021, in addition to the 28,000 employees who began receiving separation notices in October 2020. The majority of the layoffs will take effect at the end of 2020, as the firm cites limited attendance and continued closure of Disneyland in California per state coronavirus restrictions.
Now thousand of workers who received separation notices are grappling with what to do next, trying to survive on unemployment benefits after expanded federal unemployment benefits expired in July and holding out hope they will be able to return to work at Disney sometime in the future.
Laura Cave Braunston worked as a server at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, for more than 12 years before she received her separation notice which takes effect at the end of this year.
“It’s been absolutely hard to pay bills and put food on the table. We’ve had to go to food drives, and those started out with a few hundred people, now the lines are over a thousand,” said Braunston.
Her union, Unite Here Local 737, fought for her and coworkers to receive recall rights until the end of 2022, but in the meantime Braunston has struggled to find another job and recently started an Etsy shop to try to provide her family with some income. Her husband’s hours were recently reduced, and after they both tested positive for coronavirus in June 2020, which hospitalized her husband, he is suffering from chronic fatigue issues.
Meanwhile, Disney reinstated executive pay and salaries in August 2020 after enacting temporary pay cuts for executive employees on 6 April due to the coronavirus pandemic