For months, workers at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim have been fighting for higher wages.
Since February, there have been protests at the park, a demonstration outside a shareholders meeting and even a new ballot measure aimed to force the company to raise wages for its workers.
This week, unions got a little bit closer to their goal.
More than 2,700 members of Unite Here Local 11, which represents workers in the parks’ three hotels, ratified a five-year agreement over the weekend.
According to a press statement from Disneyland officials, the new deal will raise wages 40 percent over the next two years. It also implements a $15 minimum wage — effective in January — and housekeepers get a pay bump to $15.80 immediately.
In that statement, representatives from Disneyland say they're also undertaking new initiatives to provide comprehensive and affordable health care options to their employees.
But not all unions are reaping the benefits of this new deal. Workers United Local 50, which represents more than 6,500 food service workers in the park, isn't even up for contract negotiations until 2020.
Still, union officials are optimistic because of this new deal.
"I think it shows that they recognize that there is a wage problem with their employees," says Christopher Duarte, president of Workers United Local 50. "And they are addressing it. Not as fastly, or as properly, as the unions would like and the members would like, but they’re making significant movement because of the issues we’ve brought up."
One of those issues came up in February when a coalition of unions got together and helped release “Working for the Mouse.” An economic report produced by the Economic Roundtable and the Occidental College Urban & Environmental Policy Institute found a majority of union workers don’t earn enough at the park to support themselves.
"I think that the tide is rising when it concerns wages at the resort," says Duarte, "and our workers will get caught up in that tide."