Disney Workers Rising and UFCW Local 324 have told Disneyland Resort cast members that Disney’s 2027 healthcare changes will raise what they pay, and are asking them to sign a petition telling the company to back off. The petition, titled “Stop Messing with Our Healthcare Disney!”, is open now. A post shared jointly by the Disney Workers Rising and UFCW 324 Disney Workers accounts lays out three points for members: coverage will not roll over automatically, costs are going up, and the union will push back both now and at the bargaining table.
The reason it is a petition and not a grievance is written into the contract those same cast members ratified two years ago.
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What Disney Told Employees Last Week
Eric Chaisson, Disney’s executive vice president of total rewards and employee services, circulated a memo on Wednesday, August 19 outlining a set of benefits changes taking effect in 2027. Beginning that year, spouses and domestic partners will only be eligible for Disney coverage if they cannot get insurance through their own employer. Unlike past years, current coverage will not carry over, and nearly all employees will need to actively select plans and re-enroll dependents during open enrollment in October. Disney is not switching insurers. The company is also doubling the counseling sessions available through its Employee Assistance Program and plans to introduce an Employee Stock Purchase Plan later in 2027, pending approvals.
Two-thirds of employees and cast members carrying Disney insurance do not enroll a spouse, so the number of households actually affected is not yet known. Dental and vision coverage and costs are not changing, and the new spousal health coverage limit does not apply to either. Because access to Disney’s Centers for Living Well requires Disney medical benefits, spouses who lose eligibility also lose access to those clinics, including the three new locations the company announced days earlier.
Why A Petition And Not A Grievance
The Disneyland Master Services Agreement covers Disneyland Park classifications and is one of several contracts the four-union coalition holds across the resort’s roughly 14,000 cast members. UFCW Local 324, BCTGM Local 83, SEIU United Service Workers West and Teamsters Local 495 bargain it as a single unit, and it does not set its own health plan. Article 12 commits Disney to offering health and welfare coverage “on the same basis as offered to non-bargaining unit employees”, including participation in the company’s Signature flex benefit plan. A company-wide change therefore reaches union cast members the same way it reaches everyone else, without a separate negotiation.
The rest of the agreement narrows the options further. Article 23 runs the contract from June 17, 2024 to June 16, 2027, and bars both sides from raising wage and working condition issues during that window. Article 6 prohibits strikes and picketing for the life of the deal. Bargaining on a successor contract is due to begin by May 1, 2027 unless both sides agree otherwise. That timeline is exactly what the union is signalling when it tells members it can work with the company now and again next year during contract negotiations. The petition itself makes the same point, telling cast members the fight starts now because the contract expires in June.
Labor tension at the resort has been visible for weeks. Hotel workers picketed outside D23 while fans queued for the show floor, and Magic United has been publicly at odds with the company over its own first contract, saying Disney’s offer dropped paid parental leave for performers. The benefits memo lands into that.
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