There’s no magical story of the orphaned Cinderella without her glitzy ballgown and fancy glass shoes. Without the colorful attire that sets them apart, hallmark Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are no more special than a mouse you might find roaming the streets or a duck wandering the edges of Lake Eola.
None of the intricate costuming for human performers and animatronics alike at Disney Parks materializes from thin air — or by magic, despite what the Fairy Godmother might claim.
In Orlando, Florida — a U.S. city that’s driven by a low-wage tourism and service economy — that costuming is carefully crafted and altered by pink-collar laborers of Walt Disney World such as Le Lan, Christine Martell, Robyn Morie, Cindy Hsu and Bethany Kelly — all of whom told Orlando Weekly that they, with their union of 1,700 Disney World workers strong, are demanding pay that fairly compensates them for their creations, placing them on par with their union siblings who are employed in other behind-the-scenes positions that are historically male-dominated.
“We’re not birds and mice, playing and singing,” said Robyn Morie, an operations sewing specialist at Disney World who met up with Orlando Weekly after her daytime shift. “We’re working hard, and we’re professionals. We just want to be treated like it.”
Female workers represented by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 631 say that the “pink collar” work they perform at Disney World —...
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