Credit: McKenna Schueler
With just a couple of weeks until election day, Florida Democratic U.S Senate candidate Angie Nixon returned to Orlando Tuesday to hold a town hall with Disney World employees.
Nixon, a progressive from Jacksonville, heard stories from workers about their concerns over cost of living, unaffordable healthcare, the cost of groceries, and Trump’s immigration crackdown. She was joined by former U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat.
Florida is home to the third-highest population of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., and the largest population of immigrants allowed to live temporarily — and legally — in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status.
Under the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke TPS for several countries, including Venezuela, Haiti and Syria, immigrants who’ve built lives in Florida after fleeing their home countries due to political violence or climate catastrophes are today vulnerable to deportation.
“We are not criminals,” said Edner Alouidor, a 14-year custodian and Unite Here Local 737 union member from Haiti who works at Disney’s EPCOT. He’s been canvassing for political candidates his union has endorsed, like Nixon, who’s vowed to support efforts to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, if elected.
“We are workers, we are parents — we are human beings,” Alouidor stressed. “We are not asking for special treatment, we are asking for dignity. Our children deserve dreams. Our family deserves hope, not fear.”
Nixon, a Florida House representative and former union organizer herself, is campaigning on a $25 minimum wage, universal healthcare under Medicare for All, getting corporate super PACs out of politics, and strengthening workers’ rights under the proposed Protecting the Right to Organize Act.
The PRO Act, legislation that has passed the U.S. House but failed to pass the Senate, would strengthen workers’ rights under federal law by meaningfully penalizing employers that violate their workers’ right to organize a union, streamline the process of securing justice for workers unlawfully fired or disciplined by their employers, and make it easier for workers to secure a fair union contract, among other provisions.
“I know what it’s like to struggle,” said Nixon, a mother of five and business owner who has her own history of struggling to make ends meet. “People power will beat big money each and every day, but it has to be organized.”
“I’m willing to go to the U.S. Senate to help organize and to also help fight alongside you all, so we can put pressure on the folks in Washington [D.C.] to do the right thing,” she told a crowd of over 100.
“People power will beat big money each and every day.”
Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate Angie Nixon
Tuesday’s town hall was organized by an affiliate of the Machinists union, the Transport Workers Union. It’s part of a coalition of six labor unions that collectively represent roughly 45,000 employees at Disney World in Orlando, from cooks and servers to parking attendants, bus drivers, housekeepers and costumed characters like Mickey Mouse himself.
The Services Trades Council Union, representing the Disney workers, last negotiated a five-year union contract with Walt Disney World in 2023. Under that 323-page contract, set to expire at the end of 2027, minimum pay for covered Disney employees is $20, as of this month.
That’s double what it was a decade ago, when the cost of living was lower in Central Florida. But some employees say the $20 wage floor still isn’t enough to cover the bills.
“I’m blessed,” said 12-year employee Diego Henry Jr., who works in parks attractions. “I get paid $21 and change, but that’s not even a living wage right now,” he argued, “and it doesn’t seem like they [Disney] care. It doesn’t seem like they hear us.”
Tariffs, the expiration of Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies, and other inflationary pressures tied to actions of the Trump administration — affecting costs from gas pumps to grocery stores — have left many U.S. voters with a sour impression of a president who made a campaign promise in 2024 to “Make America Affordable Again.”
“There are cast members [Disney employees] who are living in their cars, there are cast members who need medical attention but cannot afford it, there are children that are going hungry,” said Quinn Gorski, a Disney employee of 23 years who waits tables at 50’s Prime Time Café at Disney World’s Hollywood Studios.
As a part-time server who isn’t afforded health benefits, Gorski said she’s grateful she’s covered on her husband’s health insurance plan as she undergoes treatment for kidney cancer.
“I am part-time due to Disney not opening full-time tipped positions, overstaffing locations, as well as outsourcing to third-party restaurants,” she alleged. “I was extremely lucky and thankful that friends started an online fundraiser to help with my bills and copays. Without that, I don’t know where I’d be.” She has another surgery scheduled for Nov. 10.
Nixon is running this November to unseat Sen. Ashley Moody, a Republican appointed to the Senate last year by Gov. Ron DeSantis to fill a vacancy left by Marco Rubio. Moody previously served as Florida’s Attorney General and has faced scrutiny this election over her role in the alleged misappropriation of $10 million in taxpayer funds that were later diverted by the nonprofit Hope Foundation to serve Gov. DeSantis’s political agenda.
“There’s a reason why my opponent won’t debate me,” Nixon told the crowd of Disney workers Tuesday. “There’s a reason why she won’t go on TV to answer questions. As a matter of fact, there’s 10 million reasons why she won’t,” Nixon quipped, to laughter and applause.
Nixon participated in three campaign events in the Orlando area Tuesday, including two with U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a fellow progressive from California, at UCF and one at a French café in Winter Garden.
Over the past weekend, Nixon also rallied with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a fellow pro-labor independent from Vermont who helped draw thousands of Floridians to campaign rallies in Tampa, Melbourne and Gainesville.
“I was told that Florida is a red state,” Sanders said at Ybor City’s Cuban Club Saturday, speaking to a crowd of 2,000 on the outskirts of Tampa. “Well, from up here, that doesn’t look like that’s the case.”
Republicans have a voter registration edge in Florida of more than 1.5 million over registered Democrats. Nixon was narrowly trailing behind Moody in a recent poll from the University of North Florida — behind by about 4 percentage points — although 5 percent of voters surveyed remain undecided.
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