Celebrating Magic United: "When We Fight, We Win!"

Adam Hefner accepted an award from the Orange County Labor Federation at its August 16 Twenty-Fourth Annual 2024 Solidarity Awards Gala on behalf of Magic United. Hefner had only recently returned to the Disneyland Resort after a year-and-a-half break when they joined early efforts to unionize performer Cast Members. That group of dedicated entertainment employees created Magic United. In May 2024, the Disneyland Resort Characters and Parades Departments voted overwhelmingly to unionize with Actors' Equity Association as their bargaining representative. Two months later, Hefner joined Equity's staff, becoming the union's first business representative assigned to Disneyland. They are excited to continue doing the work of standing up for Cast Members, creating contract proposals and preparing to bargain the unit's first contract. And we are pleased and proud to share their acceptance speech here. - The Editors

Actors’ Equity Association will always remember 2024 as a landmark year because of what happened right here in Orange County – more than 1700 of my coworkers and I came together as Magic United and unionized with Equity. We are the Disneyland cast members who create enduring memories by bringing to life beloved characters and by energizing the parks with spectacular parades, we are the workers who host meet and greets, ensure performer safety, train our fellow cast members and so much more. Parades and Characters had been Disneyland’s largest unorganized departments; now, together we make up one of Equity’s biggest bargaining units.

Throughout the process of organizing at Disneyland, I went from being a worker hoping to get my employer to address some persistent issues to being an organizer helping my coworkers to see our shared challenges at work – and that the way to get them solved was to claim our power and demand a seat at the table.

Since our landslide unionization vote, I have joined the Equity staff as the first business rep assigned to Disneyland, and I am proud to be continuing my work helping our Disneyland members create contract proposals and prepare to bargain our first contract.

Throughout this entire process, we have been uplifted by the support of our siblings across the labor movement, many of whom are in this room tonight. Members of the Orange County Labor Federation provided us with meeting space, organizing resources, and lots of wisdom and insight you’ve all gathered through your years of organizing at Disneyland and beyond. Forming a union is about proving that we are stronger together than we are individually--and our experiences with the other unions in this room and across the labor movement have made it so clear that we are united on a much greater level than I could have ever imagined at the start of our campaign, and that makes us all so much more powerful.

Equity is a national union, and this year, the entire state of California has been a center of so much of our work – not just in Disneyland. I’m particularly proud that Equity has led the way in coalition with allies from both the labor movement and within our industry in passing and protecting our state’s Performing Arts Equitable Payroll Fund, which puts money directly in the pockets of arts workers by reimbursing payroll expenses for small non-profit arts organizations. This innovative legislation protects good union jobs that serve as economic drivers in our communities – for example, every theater ticket bought in Laguna Beach results in nearly $59 spent on other businesses in the community. We all win.

And that’s really what I’ve learned from my first whirlwind year in the labor movement--when we fight, we win; and when we all fight together, we all win.

Adam Hefner began their career at Disneyland Resort, performing several roles as an Entertainment Cast Member for over seven years. While working at Disney, they completed a Bachelor of Political Science at Arizona State University and a Master of Public Administration at University of Massachusetts Global in the hopes of ultimately pursuing a career that would have an impact on others in their community.