Disney to Replace Union Nurses at Burbank Studio Lot With Subcontracted Staff
Less than a year after a new IATSE agreement, Disney shifts medical staffing at its Burbank lot.
Disney is preparing to phase out its union nurses at the Burbank studio lot, opting to subcontract the roles instead, less than a year after finalizing a new contract with IATSE.
What’s Happening:
- According to Deadline, the company informed IATSE Local 80, which represents studio nurses and other workers, that it would invoke a provision in the union’s Basic Agreement, shifting to subcontracted nurses supplied by a medical staffing firm.
- A studio source told Deadline that the change will only affect the Burbank studio lot and that employee medical services will remain the same. The decision, they explained, is aimed at streamlining backend processes, staffing, and reporting.
- So far, there is no timeline for when Disney will make the move, though it has already created a bit of a firestorm among the local crew. A petition to urge Disney to continue hiring union nurses has gained more than 700 signatures so far.
- IATSE’s Basic Agreement with the Hollywood studios only prohibits subcontracting work “which has not heretofore been subcontracted in the multi-employer bargaining unit," which opens the door for Disney to make a move like this. Studio nurses were previously subcontracted at Universal Studios in 1989.
- This clause in the contract was a major sticking point during last year’s negotiations between IATSE and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, with leadership spending “hours" attempting to have the provision removed entirely.
- For 85 years, Disney’s Burbank studio lot has employed union nurses, a tradition that dates back to Walt Disney himself.
- After suffering a neck injury in a polo accident, Walt relied on lot nurse, Hazel George, who became one of his closest confidantes. In 1952, she reportedly helped rally financial support from studio employees for his bold theme park project that would become Disneyland. Beyond her nursing role, George later contributed as a songwriter before returning to care for Walt personally until his passing in 1966.
- Today, Local 80 represents motion picture grips, crafts service, marine, first aid employees, and warehouse workers across Hollywood.
- On the studio lot, nurses typically provide immediate medical care for cast, crew, and executives, while also overseeing on-set health and wellness protocols.
What They’re Saying:
- DeJon Ellis, Local 80 business manager -
- “Their official reason, to me, verbally, is they want to get out of the business of directly providing medical care to the crew, [because] there’s a liability, so they’re trying to avoid liability,"
- “This, to me, is an assault on unionism and and a weaponization of the language [of the contract],"
- “This is just a principled attack, if you will, in my opinion, on the union workers. It’s just one less headache for that [labor relations] department."
- “We aggressively went after this. We held on to it very deep into the negotiations, trying to get rid of it and then pivoting to putting extra guardrails around this…because what’s the benefit of having a contract if you’re going to just be able to subcontract our work?"
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