Anaheim, California – Disneyland actors who bring Mickey Mouse, Cinderella, and other popular characters to life at the Southern California resort voted to unionize after a three-day referendum that ended on Saturday.

The Actors’ Equity Association labor union announced Saturday that cast members at Disney’s theme parks near Los Angeles voted overwhelmingly for the union to become the bargaining agent for approximately 1,700 workers.

According to an association website that tracked balloting among cast members, 78.7% (953 votes) supported the passage, and 21.3% (258 votes) opposed it

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Disneyland Character And Parade Performers In California Vote To Join Labor Union

“They say that Disneyland is ‘the place where dreams come true,’ and for the Disney Cast Members who have worked to organize a union, their dream came true today,” Actors’ Equity Association President Kate Shindle said in a statement on Saturday night.

Shindle described the workers as the “front lines” of the Disneyland guest experience. She said the association and cast members will address health and safety improvements, salaries, benefits, working conditions, and job security before meeting with Walt Disney Company executives to negotiate worker priorities into a contract.

The union now represents theatrical actors in Disney’s Florida parks.

According to the association, the National Labor Relations Board’s regional director will certify the results within a week, assuming no election challenges.

The NLRB did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’s email requesting confirmation or other information about the vote.

The election was held on Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday in Anaheim, California after employees filed cards earlier this year to join the “Magic United” unit.

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Disneyland Character And Parade Performers In California Vote To Join Labor Union

Parade and character workers who advocated for unionization said they like helping to create a fantastic experience at Disneyland. However, they were anxious when asked to begin hugging people after returning to work during the coronavirus pandemic. They also claimed that elaborate outfits and unpredictable timetables cause damage.

Most of the Disneyland Resort’s more than 35,000 employees, including cleaning crews, pyrotechnic specialists, and security personnel, are already unionized. The resort contains Disneyland, the Walt Disney Company’s oldest theme park, Disney California Adventure and Anaheim’s shopping and entertainment center, Downtown Disney

In recent years, Disney has been accused of failing to pay a living wage to its Southern California employees, who face excessive housing prices and frequently drive long distances or live in cramped quarters. Parade performers and character actors are paid a base rate of $24.15 per hour, up from $20 before January, plus premiums for certain roles.

Union membership has been declining in the United States for decades, but organizations have enjoyed increased public support in recent years during high-profile contract negotiations with Hollywood studios and Las Vegas hotels. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which protects workers’ rights to organize, announced more than 2,500 filings for union representation during the fiscal year 2023, the most in eight years.

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Disneyland Character And Parade Performers In California Vote To Join Labor Union

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a union that normally represents transportation workers, organized those who play Mickey, Goofy, and Donald Duck in Florida over 40 years ago.

At the time, Florida performers complained about unclean costumes and harassment from customers, including youngsters who kicked the shins of Disney villains like Captain Hook.

SOURCE – (AP)

GENEVA – On Monday, the Paralympic Games begin their 100-day journey to the opening ceremony in Paris in August, with Paul McCartney assisting.

The former Beatles’ “We All Stand Together” — the theme song from an award-winning animated short he created and produced 40 years ago — will be featured in a promotional film for the International Paralympic Committee

“Sir Paul really understands what we stand for as a movement, and he was extremely generous to us,” IPC president Andrew Parsons told The Associated Press. “He was not difficult to convince, it was something that came very naturally.”

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Paul McCartney Song Starts Paralympics On 100-Day Countdown To Opening Ceremony In Paris

On August 28, 100 days from Monday, the Summer Paralympics opening ceremony will occur along a stretch of the Champs-Élysées and Place de la Concorde. Over the next 11 days, the 4,400 athletes will compete in places such as the Eiffel Tower and Versailles Palace in front of up to 2.7 million spectators.

“We probably have the most famous avenue in the world,” Parsons stated in a recent interview. “That is very exciting. The city is really supporting Paralympic athletes and athletes with impairments.”

“With our games, we talk a lot about inclusion, and this is a fantastic representation of that. That extremely inviting attitude is a great way to start our games.

A watershed moment for the Paralympic movement occurred in London in 2012 when the host country rose to the occasion with record ticket sales and a completely new approach to broadcasting by Britain’s Channel 4.

“Still the benchmark games of our movement,” added Parsons, whose native country of Brazil staged the 2016 edition in Rio de Janeiro.

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Paul McCartney Song Starts Paralympics On 100-Day Countdown To Opening Ceremony In Paris

Channel 4 produced the “We’re the Superhumans” musical film to promote the Rio Paralympics. The film was a landmark in terms of its high production values and inspirational imagery.

“Many broadcasters come to us in their preparations in different parts of the world and they normally ask, ‘What is Channel 4 doing?'” Parsons stated. In that vein, the IPC trailer, inspired by McCartney’s “Rupert and the Frog Song” film, follows suit.

The Paris Paralympics will record 164 broadcasters worldwide, with 549 events across 22 sports.

Beyond the field of play, the Paralympics strive to change society, particularly in the host nation—and have previously achieved this.

In France and Paris, Parsons admitted that “there is still a lot of work to be done when it comes to people’s mindsets and perceptions of people with disabilities.”

“It has progressed since they received the games in 2017, but there is still a long way to go. “And it does not end with the closing ceremony.”

Two weeks after the Paralympics end on September 8, the United Nations conducts a global gathering that Parsons hopes will spark change.

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Paul McCartney Song Starts Paralympics On 100-Day Countdown To Opening Ceremony In Paris

The UN will assess progress toward its 17 sustainable development objectives during the Summit of the Future, which will occur on September 22 and 23.

“We do believe our movement has, in terms of persons of disability, been a little bit left behind, if you compare to other human rights movements such as gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity,” Parsons stated. “They have become increasingly prominent in the major debates at the highest level.

“We believe that these (Paris) games will be able to really remind global leaders that there is 1.2 billion persons with disabilities out there that need to be included in those conversations.”

SOURCE – (AP)

NEW YORK — To say Cage the Elephant’s latest album had a rocky start would be an understatement. The band coped with loved ones’ deaths, the pandemic, and its lead singer’s arrest and illness.

“It’s no secret that I had a medical crisis,” Matt Shultz tells The Associated Press from Nashville on the eve of the Friday release of the 12-track album “Neon Pill.” “I am fully recovered. It does leave a scar, but it is one that can be ignored.”

The Kentucky-born singer-songwriter was charged with criminal possession of firearms in January 2023 after police discovered his guns inside his Bowery Hotel room in Lower Manhattan.

Shultz claims that in the aftermath, he discovered that for the past three years or more, he had been experiencing a negative reaction to a set of prescribed medications (Shultz did not specify which), resulting in episodes of psychosis.

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Rock Band Cage The Elephant Emerge From Loss And Hospitalization With New Album ‘Neon Pill’

“It’s shocking how night and day the difference is from being on whatever medication is causing psychosis and being off of it,” he continues. “Once I got off the drug, I returned to my normal self. And that was strange because it felt like someone else had taken over your life.”

That so-called other person had contributed to the five-year recording of “Neon Pill,” and it was up to Shultz — who was hospitalized for two months and underwent around six months of outpatient therapy — to unravel the music.

“I went back to the lyrics, obviously to finish the album, and it was like reading the words of a totally different person and trying to decode what they meant,” he recalls. “A lot of it was going back and trying to find the sentiment of what I was trying to communicate.”

Shultz escaped jail time after pleading guilty to three firearms offenses.

“I’m so blessed it wasn’t worse than it was,” adds the man. “And grateful that I received the medical attention I required. I’m extremely fortunate to be surrounded by my family and my wife. God got me through it. I’d be dead numerous times over.

“Neon Pill” reunites the band with producer John Hill, who worked on their previous 2019 Grammy-winning album, “Social Cues.” It presents a kaleidoscope of rock, from the strutting glam of “Ball and Chain” to the piano ballad of “Out Loud” and the breezy alt-rock of “Float Into the Sky.” One song, “Rainbow,” is infectiously poppy, as if Cage covered a Dead or Alive tune.

“It was like a culmination of all the Cage records combined,” claims Shultz. “John Hill had a greater impact on this album, without a doubt.” Not that he didn’t impact ‘Social Cues,’ but with this one, he pushed us harder to go within ourselves and compose the greatest material we could.

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Rock Band Cage The Elephant Emerge From Loss And Hospitalization With New Album ‘Neon Pill’

The album explores Shultz’s experiences, including the lyrics “Double-crossed by a neon pill/Like a loaded gun, my love,
I lost control of the wheel.” The song is the band’s 11th number-one hit on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay list.

“We definitely felt like that was the title track once everything came to be,” adds Shultz, who is joined by his guitarist brother Brad, bassist Daniel Tichenor, drummer Jared Champion, guitarist Nick Bockrath, and pianist Matthan Minster.

Two songs are about Matt and Brad’s father, Brad Shultz Sr., one of which is “Out Loud.” It is about the day the older Shultz and his father had a violent dispute, and their father fled to Florida, hitching the entire way. After a year, the younger man felt sorrow and created an apology song, which he hitchhiked back to Kentucky to play for his father.

Matt Shultz says the narrative inspired him, “so I wrote a song about the song he wrote.” The lyrics to that song are: “Man, I really messed up now/ Clipped those wings and I came back home/Tried my best just to carry on.”

The album’s final tune, “Over Your Shoulder,” laments his father’s death in 2020. The Shultz brothers inherited milk crates containing hundreds of their father’s tunes on ancient cassette recordings. A new original Cage song appeared, similar to their father’s style, with the lyrics: “Don’t look back over your shoulder/I’m not saying don’t ask/When it feels like it gets colder/Every season will pass.”

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Rock Band Cage The Elephant Emerge From Loss And Hospitalization With New Album ‘Neon Pill’

Matt Shultz thinks the entire record is a departure for a band that had previously worn its influences on their sleeves.

“We’d be in the studio, trying to replicate and emulate. But with this record, I believe we were simply relaxed into ourselves and striving to create something we loved.”

SOURCE – (AP)