New Competitive Wages

Stumbled upon a post by Cedar Point on their Facebook page advertising $12-$15/hr for associate positions in 2021. Looks like they're trying to do something about their struggle to staff the park adequately. Fingers crossed that is enough incentive to meet the needs.

MichaelB said:

Stumbled upon a post by Cedar Point on their Facebook page advertising $12-$15/hr for associate positions in 2021. Looks like they're trying to do something about their struggle to staff the park adequately. Fingers crossed that is enough incentive to meet the needs.

🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

If there are still restrictions on international travel at the time the park opens, that will be a big setback for the park. Paying a better wage should help address that issue and they can draw more local and US workers and decrease their reliance on internationals.

I may be reading too much into it, but hopefully this is a signal that the park is trying to get back to a full (or at least more complete) staff, and by doing so we can see more normal park hours, and possibly rides back to higher capacities this summer.

Right now, its a safe bet the park has been planning for there not to be any international workers for the 2021 season.

I enjoyed talking to the international workers. Look at their tag and start up a conversation. My first comment/question was always 'how is it working at Cedar Point'. Most were positive answers, very few were negative as 'not what I thought it was gonna be / don't like it / looking forward to the end of their contract so they can leave / hours are too long'.

Back in 2018 & 2019, seemed like many / most were from Europe.

Back in the late 90s' at the pretzel stand in the area of the magnum, there was an Australian guy, strong accent, talked to him many times. Every time I would give him an American coin ( for him and not to buy something with at the stand by me). I gave him a coin(s) that he would not normally encounter to take back with him. An Ike dollar, a Kennedy half, a SBA dollar, to name a few. No, none were silver.

It’s not just the international workers with those complaints, btw...

RCMAC said:

It’s not just the international workers with those complaints, btw...

I'd say complaints like that are definitely far more likely to come from local workers.

I worked ride ops summer of '19. One of my coworkers confided in me that they had to wash their uniforms in the shower because they ran out of money for the laundry.

$9.50 an hour.

Not livable.

Dvo said:

I may be reading too much into it, but hopefully this is a signal that the park is trying to get back to a full (or at least more complete) staff, and by doing so we can see more normal park hours, and possibly rides back to higher capacities this summer.

Yes PLEASE!

cpblue said:

I worked ride ops summer of '19. One of my coworkers confided in me that they had to wash their uniforms in the shower because they ran out of money for the laundry.

$9.50 an hour.

Not livable.

i thought wardrobe washed the uniforms...yes, no, maybe?

One of the problems is the increase in the housing charges. I worked there from 2009 to 2014. In either 2013 or 2014 (I forget) housing was $5.71 to live in Common Dorms. I was making a little more than min. wage (perhaps $8.50 / hr). Now, for 2021, the cost of Common Dorms is $10.00 / day. Also, food at the employee cafe has probably has gone up since 2014.

While I'm sure the no overtime thing still exists, and hour bonuses are basically gone. I could deal with the new rates for housing, with the higher hourly. IF!! They actually have quality WIFI. And that, from my experience, I'm sure is doubtful. But I could be wrong. I always said, I'd rather have 70 hours a week at one place, then trying to juggle 3 jobs scheduling, traveling, ect to equal the same amount of hours.

But saying that, from what I've been reading on various CP pages, I wouldn't be able to even get housing now, or even way back when I worked there anymore. When and why did they change the age restrictions for housing to 18 to 29?? I was in my 30's when I worked there. I admit there weren't many people in my age group during my times (mid 2000's), but it didn't bother me too much. I learned a lot from the younger generation while also trying to help some deal with the issue's of home sickness. And the worst, learning to clean for themselves!! Most of the kids had never done that before.

I don't think the housing age limit thing is going to end well. They are opening up themselves up to alot of complaints and possibly even a discrimination lawsuit. Watch them go back on it in a few days. They try to address one issue but created another one.

As someone who works with social media and public relations (which by no means makes me an expert), this is a very bad look for the park in my own opinion. They’ve spent the last few years working their way up to be more inclusive of all age groups, as well as expanding their uniform policy to allow different hair colors and tattoos amongst other things. You can’t act like you’re this all inclusive employer and then decide that only a certain age group can have access to your housing. Plenty of folks outside that age group want to work for the park but need housing.

As far as PR goes this is a terrible decision and paints the park in a much more negative light. And, above all else, they aren’t getting international workers again this year so they’ve got little room to suddenly decide to be picky.

I’m not sure what issue prompted this move but there are far better ways to address it. This was not the way.

Am I the only one who thinks that a 30-something adult living with a bunch of college kids is a little creepy?

They could have age groups separated by buildings, floors or whatever. But telling anyone over 30 they can't live there outright is just wrong. If the issue was overcrowding in the housing, they could have done something like if you live less than an hour away, you can't live there, you have to work an x number of hours to be eligible for housing or whatever. But alienating an age group is just asking for problems and making themselves look bad. I'm sure this will get challenged somehow and they will end up reversing or modifying their decision.

Here is news article for reference

I post this having never worked at Cedar Point, but what Jeff posted was my gut reaction. Lot's of older adults go to college, to, but they don't live in the dorms with the 18-year-olds.

That's not a perfect analogy. It might not even be a good one, but is there really a high percentage of 30+ year-olds working at the park that actually live in the dorms? All assumptions on my part, but I figured most of those folks were locals that simply drove in each day, while the dorms were already relegated to the college/overseas crowd. Maybe 30 is where they start to see a drop-off of those folks. And maybe, just maybe, they have been working on recruiting a force of 18-29 years olds via the new Bowling Green based college program (the name escapes me at the moment) in Sandusky.

And it's not discrimination. It would only be an ageism case if Cedar Point was not hiring based on age; they're just simply saying you can't sleep here. When you're 35.

I think that's OK.

I love the FB comments that always imply the park hasn't thought this through. What's more logical: 1) they did a careful assessment of the issue and explored any work-force and/or legal ramifications, or 2) decided on a whim to say 35 years olds can't live in the dorms?

Again, it’s not a good spin by the park. And Jeff’s comment was extraordinarily narrow minded at best because you could make the same argument against all of the parks employee gatherings that occur throughout the season.

This change in policy goes against the efforts they’ve made the last few years to be this “all inclusive” employer. Regardless of personal opinion it’s just doesn’t come across the right way. You can have separate housing like what was mentioned above. And with the crappy pay rates the park has the housing has been a nice option since off property housing is much more expensive.

And we are all smart enough to know that the park runs everything through legal. That’s common sense.

It is what it is but there were probably better ways of putting this message out.

Jeff said:

Am I the only one who thinks that a 30-something adult living with a bunch of college kids is a little creepy?

To be honest, no, you're not the only one. But in todays world, there are a lot of other groups of people besides older ones that many would find "creepy." And there are all sorts of fights happening everywhere and it seems like the growing consensus is that treating groups of people differently and excluding them from the same opportunities that others get is the wrong thing to do. People that do that are called racists, bigots, misogynists, etc. I have no doubt that some people that would be okay with this decision would be among the first to say it's wrong if they singled out other groups for exclusion. What one person finds creepy is what another person thinks is normal. If being inclusive is the right thing to do in other cases, it's a tough sell for someone to say it's not here.

I'm really just not even sure what problem they're trying to solve. If it's because they think older people are causing problems living with younger ones or it's creepy, why not have some separate rooms or floors designated for the "mature" crowd? Just recall at one point, the park said co-ed crews caused problems so they had segregated crews. Eventually, they lost that battle and were forced to change. If housing is short, why don't they build another dorm on some of that property they own along Cleveland Road to replace they've recently torn down? Every fall, the same staffing issues happen because college kids go back to school. This decision wouldn't seem to help in that regard. Cedar Point doesn't have a huge local population to draw from. That's never going to change so offering housing is how they've combatted it. If they can get enough college kids to fill the roles, awesome! If not, why eliminate part of your potential employee pool?