Universal Studios Hollywood Workers Say They Are Still Facing Food and Housing Insecurity

Ensconced in a lush ballroom at the University of Southern California, underneath crystal chandeliers and vaulted ceilings, Diego Rodriguez was waiting for a chance to speak to Donna Langley.

Langley, the NBCUniversal Entertainment chairman and arguably the most powerful woman in Hollywood, was the keynote speaker of the university law school’s annual entertainment law conference. Her captive audience was a mix of undergrads and “rich Beverly Hills lawyers,” describes Rodriguez, who is himself a cook at the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park, where he works in the kitchens behind unholy IP-park food combinations like “Marge Hair Cotton Candy” for the Simpsons-themed hot dog stand and “Boss Baby Beignets” for a DreamWorks-centered café.

Langley, fresh off of the successes of The Odyssey and Obsession for her division, had reason to be running a victory lap, but it wasn’t about to go as planned. Her conversation with industry lawyer Bruce Ramer appeared to be nearing its end when Rodriguez grabbed an extra mic he saw in the room. It wasn’t on, so he and his companion, a staffer for his union at the park, began raising their voices. Langley stepped down from the platform where she was talking and pulled the protestors aside.

Amid the fracas, “I told her, ‘Hey, my name is Diego Rodriguez. I’m currently one of your workers at Universal,’” Rodriguez says. At the time he lived with family in Fresno, as he says he couldn’t afford to live closer, and at times slept in his car or in the park between shifts — and he told her as much. “‘I think it’s unfair that I’m currently living in this situation and you’re over here talking about all these profits, all these margins, and you don’t even want to help your own employees.’”

Langley told them that theme parks didn’t fall under her corporate purview and she couldn’t help, per Rodriguez and the union staffer who attended the event. A Universal source who was there, meanwhile, says Langley “compassionately” told the two that she would make sure the right people were aware. Universal Destinations & Experiences chairman and CEO Mark Woodbury manages the parks.

But after watching her “expressing all these profits” in the keynote, Rodriguez wasn’t satisfied. “For a person that gave my blood and sweat to the company, I feel like even though she says she has nothing to do and say, she represents the company, what’s that all about?” he asks. (A version of this exchange was previously reported in Puck.)

As event staff tried to get them to leave, Rodriguez and the staffer protested being touched and eventually returned to union colleagues who were passing out leaflets outside stating Universal workers were going hungry.

As this highly unusual interruption of a posh entertainment law function revealed, tensions between Universal Studios Hollywood food-service workers and management have been spilling over amid contract negotiations that have stretched on for about a year, as the two sides remain deep in talks. During a period of skyrocketing prices in the U.S., Unite Here Local 11, representing some 1,700 food cart, bakery, restaurant and warehouse workers at the park, is negotiating for higher wages and changes to scheduling practices. When talks were floundering in the past month, the union circulated the sobering results of an internal survey that offers a window into the experience of its workers over the last few years. According to that report, union members are facing food and housing insecurity while their working hours are being cut, exacerbating the problem.

The union conducted the survey itself, using a methodology that was not shared with THR. Naturally, the study — released amid a tense contract negotiation — was designed to build pressure on management to engage seriously with the union’s demands.

But that workers making and selling the park’s Butterbeer Ice Cream and Toadstool Cheesy Garlic Knots are reporting skipping meals, unfortunately, isn’t a new finding. Two years ago, during contract negotiations involving two park unions, including Unite Here Local 11, The Hollywood Reporter reported on widespread poverty amongst these park workers. According to the union and some of its members who spoke again with THR, not much has changed — even as they hope that a new deal could help that situation. “Honestly, I don’t want to worry about what do I got to eat next? Where do I got to live next?” says Rodriguez.

In a statement in response to these claims, a Universal spokesperson says, “Universal Studios Hollywood has a long history of working collaboratively with our labor partners to reach comprehensive wage and benefits agreements, including most recently with IATSE Local B-192, which represents more than 4,000 employees in similar guest service positions as Unite HERE Local 11.”

The spokesperson continues, “Our proposals to UNITE HERE Local 11 reflect this longstanding commitment, and build on the significant wage increases secured in their 2023 agreement. We remain fully engaged in the collective bargaining process and continue to make ourselves available to meet, negotiate, and work in good faith towards an agreement for our valued team members.”

The union’s survey finds food insecurity is rampant among the park’s food-service workers. A little over 60 percent of the 828 union members who responded said they had to choose between paying for food, medications or housing over the last year. Nearly 53 percent reported choosing not to eat at times when they were hungry because they felt they couldn’t spend the money. And more than a quarter, nearly 26 percent, said they received food assistance of some kind, whether from SNAP, WIC, food banks or other services.

Chris Lillian, 40, a food stand attendant and seven-year veteran of the park, knows this struggle well. This year Lillian claims his quality of life has plummeted, which he attributes to inflation as well as a theme that arose among all the Universal workers THR spoke with — the park reducing his hours. Last year, he says he was working around 40 hours a week on average, whereas this year the average is roughly 32 hours a week on his $24 an hour salary. (Currently, he’s working more during the busy Halloween season. For comparison, the minimum wage in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, encompassing Universal City, is currently $18.47 an hour.)

As a result, Lillian says he’s stretching meals and eating less, saying he’s lost 20 pounds so far this year. And he feels an immense sense of precarity, being nearly unable to pay his rent. “It disgusts me that for all the time that I’ve put in, for the hard work that I do, for the effort that I put in for the guest experience as they call it, for all of that, for me to be struggling, just on the edge, just on the edge,” he says. “I would bet money that I’m one emergency away from just ruin.”

Heather Saxxon, a food stand attendant, makes $23 an hour: “Most of the meals in the park are more than that, and that doesn’t include a drink,” she deadpans. A single mother whose daughter is living at home through college, Saxxon says she drives for Lyft and HopSkipDrive (a student transportation company) to stay afloat given that her hours have also been seemingly reduced this year. That’s despite earning the title “Team Member of the Year” for 2025.

She says she doesn’t go to the grocery store much for herself. “I get to eat basically when I’m at work and it’s only usually at Take 5 [the employee cafeteria] because I can’t afford the food in the park,” she says. (Park employees receive a $9.50 voucher for food at work, per Saxxon.) “Sometimes I’ve had to forego my medications because I’m not making enough. I’ve used up all my credit cards, I’m in so much debt, and it’s just from basic living.”

She adds, “Everything is just getting higher, you know, but not our pay.”

Housing insecurity is another theme of Unite Here Local 11’s survey. A little more than 11 percent of workers said they had been unhoused at some point while working at Universal Studios Hollywood. But many who spoke to THR simply emphasized the struggle to pay rent.

A cook in the upper lot named Cat lives in Section 8 housing. (Cat only agreed to talk if THR did not share her last name.) With a wage of $28 an hour, she currently works a bit under 30 hours a week, but when foot traffic falls at the start of the year, her hours are typically slashed. Earlier this year, she says she didn’t have enough to cover rent and almost got evicted. “It’s been hard lately, especially with everything that’s been going up in the country,” Cat says. “So it [the wage rate] doesn’t really keep up with everything that’s going up with all the inflation.”

The latest study results aren’t all that different from one conducted by the UCLA Labor Center just two years previously, which was then reported on by THR. The UCLA study — which looked at park workers represented by both Unite Here Local 11 and a separate union, IATSE B-192, which represents tour guides, ride operators, carnival barkers and clerks — found that 67 percent of workers said they didn’t earn enough for monthly food, housing and utilities expenses. Ten percent of workers hired in 2021 or before said they had experienced homelessness in the previous few years. 53 percent said they reduced the size of meals or skipped meals, and a quarter of them received food benefits.

In the last contract Unite Here Local 11 negotiated with Universal Studios Hollywood, in 2024, employees with more than one year of work under their belts won a 23 percent raise over the course of the three-year contract unless the new base wage for their role was higher. Why didn’t that make a dent? “If you’re making close to the minimum wage of $20, a 23 percent increase in the life of a contract, stacked with how bad the economy has gone in the last few years, [means you’re] not feeling 23 percent,” argues Miguel Jauregui, Unite Here Local 11’s organizing director. In addition, he adds, hourly wage increase only goes so far when working hours are being cut. (Management has not provided an explanation for this practice, according to the union, but keeps hiring new workers who must log training hours.)

In its latest contract negotiations, the labor group is seeking higher wages — a recent proposal was a 20 percent raise over the course of the deal — as well as revised scheduling practices. The union has also recently called for a 40-hour work week for workers with seniority and six-hour shifts to be expanded into eight-hour shifts for various workers. The contract that workers are currently operating under expired nearly nine months ago, and in September, more than 98 percent of voting bargaining unit members voted to authorize a strike, which their negotiators could call at any time, a move that would hobble the park. But negotiations remain ongoing to reach a deal.

In the meantime, Universal’s theme parks remain an important profit center for the company, even as they have been hit by some of the same inflationary pressures facing all companies and their workers. NBCUniversal’s theme parks division revenue dropped 4.4 percent to $2.6 billion in the third quarter of 2026, a decrease the company attributed to the macroeconomic and geopolitical environment as well as capacity issues at the Orlando resort’s new Epic Universe park and competitors being more nimble in their marketing. In 2025 the theme park division accounted for eight percent of NBCUniversal owner Comcast’s total revenue, per Barron’s, but it remains a potential growth area as other parts of the business are set to shrink.

And executive pay, at least that which is disclosed to shareholders, sure isn’t going down. In 2025 Comcast co-CEO Mark Cavanagh received $71.8 million in compensation, more than 150 percent his take-home pay from 2024. Co-CEO Brian Roberts received $35.1 million, a raise of 4 percent from 2024. Information on the compensation of Woodbury, who manages the parks, is not provided to shareholders.

Like many of his colleagues, Rodriguez — the cook who confronted Donna Langley — is typically assigned a lot of hours during Halloween Horror Nights, the park’s annual scarefest featuring haunted houses and actors terrifying visitors. While in the past he has at times slept in his car or in the park, he’s recently moved into an apartment with a roommate in the Pico-Union neighborhood of L.A. He’s warned his roommate that he doesn’t know how long he can afford to stay there, however. Usually when hours are whittled down during the winter and early spring slow season, Rodriguez, a dual U.S.-Mexico citizen, lives with family in Mexico to enjoy the lower cost of living.

This isn’t where he thought this job would take him. When he got started working at the park, he decided to try having a single job, rather than multiple. He says, “But man, I guess what [was] a futuristic idea for me turns out to be in between homeless and immigrating to another country.” Still, he loves his job. He says, “It’s really just seeing the smiles on people’s faces every day when I get to come into the park. I’m like, ‘Holy shit.’”