Disneyland cast members such as the performers who portray characters like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Cinderella have taken another step in their efforts to unionize.

The employees are looking to join the Actors’ Equity Association (Equity), which represents workers in live theatrical performance, and the union announced Wednesday that it has filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to hold a union election.

The cast members seeking to organize have dubbed themselves “Magic United,” and announced their plans to unionize in February. Since then, the volunteer organizers have collected signed union authorization cards from coworkers, and a supermajority of Disneyland’s 1,700 eligible performers have signed on.

The employees are seeking better pay and benefits and improved working conditions.

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Equity said that most of Disneyland’s 35,000 workers are already unionized, but this effort is aimed at organizing cast members who work in the Parades and Characters department.

The union, which represents some 51,000 professional actors and stage managers, noted that workers who perform the same duties at Walt Disney World in Florida have been unionized for decades.

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“The Cast Members who bring the Characters and Parades to life have been non-union since Disneyland Resort opened in the 1950s and have watched other workers in the park unionize all around them,” said Equity President Kate Shindle. “Just eight weeks after Equity launched a campaign seeking union authorization cards, we have signatures from a supermajority of those eligible.”

FOX Business has reached out to Disney for comment.

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FOX Business’ Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

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Google has fired dozens of employees involved in anti-Israel protests that took over the corporate offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California.

In a memo to employees, Google Vice President of Global Security Chris Rackow announced that 28 staffers who participated in a 10 hour sit-in at the company’s offices, including the personal office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, were terminated Wednesday after an internal investigation. 

“They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers,” Rackow wrote in the memo, which Google confirmed was accurate. “Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive, and made co-workers feel threatened.”

The memo was first reported by the New York Post. 

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Jane Chung, a spokesperson for the protest group No Tech For Apartheid, said in a press release that nine employees at offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California, were arrested during Tuesday’s sit-in. Several Google employees were also arrested inside the tech company’s Sunnyvale offices after a sit-in.

Demonstrators were arrested after they occupied Kurian’s office to read their list of demands, including that Google cut off all ties to Israel and cancel a $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud-computing and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government. 

The employees also demanded that the company stop “the harassment, intimidation, bullying, silencing, and censorship of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Googlers.”

Google has denied that its Nimbus project is assisting Israel with weapons or intelligence services.

‘GOOGLERS AGAINST GENOCIDE’ LEAD SIT-INS, PROTEST COAST-TO-CAST AT AT TECH GIANT’S OFFICES

“Google Cloud supports numerous governments around the world in countries where we operate, including the Israeli government, with our generally available cloud computing services,” the company told FOX Business in a statement. 

“We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial cloud by Israeli government ministries, who agree to comply with our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy. This work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services,” a Google spokesperson said. 

The company-wide memo said employees involved in the protests were placed under investigation and had their access to Google’s systems cut off. 

“Behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it,” Rackow wrote. Those demonstrators who refused to leave Google’s premises were arrested by law enforcement and forcibly removed, he said.

GOOGLE FIRES EMPLOYEE WHO INTERRUPTED TECH CONFERENCE WITH ANTI-ISRAEL RANT; ‘NOT OKAY’

Rackow added that the protest violated Google’s employee code of conduct and workplace harassment and standards of conduct policies.

“We are a place of business and every Googler is expected to read our policies and apply them to how they conduct themselves and communicate in our workplace. The overwhelming majority of our employees do the right thing. If you’re one of the few who are tempted to think we’re going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again,” the memo reads. 

“The company takes this extremely seriously, and we will continue to apply our longstanding policies to take action against disruptive behavior — up to and including termination.” 

In a statement to FOX Business, a Google spokesperson said the protests were part of a “longstanding campaign by a group of organizations and people who largely don’t work at Google.”

 “A small number of employee protesters entered and disrupted a few of our locations,” the spokesperson said. “Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior. After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety.”

Google confirmed that 28 employees were fired after an internal review. 

“We will continue to take action as needed,” the spokesperson said.

No Tech For Apartheid did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Jane Chung, a spokeswoman for the protesters, blasted the firings in a statement. 

“This evening, Google indiscriminately fired 28 workers, including those among us who did not directly participate in yesterday’s historic, bicoastal 10-hour sit-in protests,” Google workers said in the statement.

“This flagrant act of retaliation is a clear indication that Google values its $1.2 billion contract with the genocidal Israeli government and military more than its own workers — the ones who create real value for executives and shareholders.”

“Sundar Pichai and Thomas Kurian are genocide profiteers,” the statement asserted, referring to Google’s CEO and the Google Cloud CEO, respectively. 

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“We cannot comprehend how these men are able to sleep at night while their tech has enabled 100,000 Palestinians killed, reported missing, or wounded in the last six months of Israel’s genocide — and counting.”

An NYPD spokesperson said about 50 people were involved in the Tuesday protest, and four were arrested for trespassing inside the Google building, according to the Post.

The Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety said the California protest “consisted of around 80 participants.” Five protesters were arrested for refusing to leave Google’s office, the New York Post reported. 

FOX Business’ Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report. 

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During his “My Take,” Thursday, “Varney & Co.” host Stuart Varney reacted to Google firing employees after sit-in protests over its Project Nimbus contract with Israel, arguing the tech giant set an example for other businesses that face similar “disruptive behavior.”

STUART VARNEY: Finally, management gets a backbone. 

After sit-ins and disruption at its offices in California and New York, Google fired 28 workers. 

‘GOOGLERS AGAINST GENOCIDE’ LEAD SIT-INS, PROTESTS COAST-TO-COAST AT TECH GIANT’S OFFICE

It’s about time.

For months, activists inside the company had been angrily protesting Google’s Project Nimbus. 

That is a billion dollar cloud computing contract with Israel. To the left, any contact with Israel is forbidden. 

Tuesday, workers had refused to leave the office of Thomas Kurian, who runs Google’s cloud operation. 

GOOGLE FIRED EMPLOYEE WHO INTERRUPTED TECH CONFERENCE WITH ANTI-ISRAEL RANT

It was a disruptive sit-in. Some were arrested and led away in handcuffs.

On Wednesday, Google said, “Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies and completely unacceptable behavior.”

Google fired them. 

They laid down a marker that will be watched by others who face similar disruptive activist behavior.

Netflix told activist employees that if they didn’t like its content, they could go work someplace else.

What will happen at Columbia University? Last night, an ugly anti-Israel, near riot, just off campus. 

GOOGLE WORKERS PROTESTING IN CALIFORNIA AND NEW YORK

It’s hard to see how the 4,700 Jewish students at Columbia will feel comfortable going about their business. 

The university’s president had just told Congress what she was doing about antisemitism. What will she do now?

Hats off to Google for standing firm. They have stated clearly what will not be tolerated.

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Mortgage rates climbed above 7% this week for the first time in 2024, continuing their upward trajectory and putting further pressure on the housing market.

Freddie Mac’s latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey, released Thursday, showed that the average rate on the benchmark 30-year fixed mortgage jumped to 7.10% this week from 6.88% last week. The average rate on a 30-year loan was 6.39% a year ago.

The average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage rose to 6.39% from 6.16% last week. One year ago, the rate on the 15-year fixed note averaged 5.76%.

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“As rates trend higher, potential homebuyers are deciding whether to buy before rates rise even more or hold off in hopes of decreases later in the year,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “Last week, purchase applications rose modestly, but it remains unclear how many homebuyers can withstand increasing rates in the future.”

The combination of persistently elevated rates and record-high home prices has left the housing market stalled for months, as many would-be buyers and sellers remain on the sidelines waiting for affordability to improve.

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According to a recent Realtor.com survey, almost eight out of 10 potential sellers said they still feel locked in to their homes and nearly half of these “locked-in” sellers plan to wait for lower rates.

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That is contributing to the ongoing shortage of inventory, which is keeping home prices sky-high – and out of reach for many would-be buyers.

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