Walt Disney World workers on Thursday approved a new contract that increases the starting minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next three years while enabling Disney to use more part-time workers and require new workers to stay in their positions longer before transferring.
The contract covers more than half of the 70,000 workers at Disney World, the largest single-site employer in the United States.
Those workers include costumed characters, bus drivers, launderers, retail workers, monorail drivers, custodians, housekeepers, servers, cooks, florists, makeup artists and lifeguards.
Union officials said the new contract would have an impact outside of Walt Disney World as other non-unionized businesses in central Florida's low-wage service economy compete for tourism workers in a tight job market.