Mike Schneider – författare

A behind-the-scenes look at the lives of Disney’s character performers and their struggles for union democracy    

Behind thecostumes, life isn’t always magic and fairy dust for the people who play theiconic characters of Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and Cinderella at Walt Disney World.In a surprising tale of corruption alongside activism, Mickey and the Teamsters reveals the little-known story ofTeamsters Local 385, the union that represents these performers. It spotlightsDonna-Lynne Dalton, a former cast member who stood up for other Disney performersagainst deep-rooted problems in the union that was supposed to protect them.

Journalist Mike Schneider, who covered the story as it unfolded, includesexclusive interviews with labor leaders and workers at the park, detailing how theunion prevented its members from leaving, severely mismanaged union business, andpromoted a culture of hostile leadership. Members of the Teamsters local feltthat they no longer had a voice, fearing devastating consequences if they spokeup. But Dalton brought the issues to investigators in an act of whistleblowingthat threatened her livelihood. In return, the local union fired Dalton andbegan harassing her and other union members who opposed its leaders. The storyescalates as Schneider describes protests by the Disney performers and theinterventions of James Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood ofTeamsters.

How Many Faces Do You Have? is a poem sequence that interrogates intimacy, each poem a face the poet discovers, a reflection revealed in response to inner questioning. In a voice of quiet sonority, these lyrics journey from a high-school gym dance to a  moonlit beach polka. They linger over sushi in Montreal and an airline meal at 40,000 feet on a flight. They touch joy and pain and celebrate the vicissitudes of love that goes “into the tangled heartland / where there is no trail,” as a gift of being.

  A face

is such a strange thing. Obsessed

                               with distortion, Modigliani

 loved elongated faces

       like Tamara’s at a distance,

 a flattened oval, two black jewels. He

                   painted with a dagger

 in his teeth, they say, to see the face

       within the face — grave,

 cold-eyed as Nefertiti, Queen of Egypt,

                   whom I’ve always loved

                                                       for her name alone.