PLYMOUTH — The crude wood houses belch fireplace smoke, livestock meander inside crooked gates. Friendly actors dressed in 17th-century garb say 17th-century things. One man by a fire carves a spoon, another on a dirt path has a pouch around his neck holding gunpowder.

On a recent day at Plimoth Plantation, the storied re-creation of a 1620s Colonial village where tours have been a New England rite of passage for decades, it certainly looks like original Pilgrims happily preparing for their first Thanksgiving feast.

But all is not well.

As it readies for its annual throng of visitors, Plimoth Plantation remains embroiled in a long-running battle between employees and management that has sparked widespread internal turmoil.

“Turmoil,” corrects Peter Follansbee, a former employee who left in frustration in 2014 after 20 years as a craftsman at the plantation, “would be tame.”

In the aftermath of a bitter movement to unionize, some plantation workers — mainly the actors who assume 17th-century personas and inhabit the re-created village like Pilgrims of yore — say they are being overworked and bullied, and they fear management is slowly undoing the living museum’s greatness.

In recent years, workers say, staff attrition has resulted in just a handful of interpreters working in the village at times — compared with as many as 18 to 20 in years past — raising concerns about staffing when the plantation is crowded with children on school trips. Others say that some of the small wood homes populating the village have deteriorated to the point they are safety hazards, with leaking roofs and some structures that are visibly leaning.

In an interview, Plimoth spokeswoman Kate Sheehan rejected the notion of a museum in crisis.

The plantation sits in a strong position, she said, though she declined to comment on specific issues, saying the museum has put the labor dispute behind it.

“We’re focused, as always, on all the things that are taking this museum forward,” Sheehan said, adding that the museum takes visitor and worker safety seriously.

In the aftermath of a bitter movement to unionize, some plantation workers say they are being overworked, and they fear management is undoing the living museum’s greatness. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

While the union has suffered a major setback in its efforts to represent workers, a number of current and former employees said problems persist, not just over work conditions but also management decisions they feel could damage the plantation experience.

“Some of the steps they’re taking,” said Kate Moore, a 23-year plantation employee who helped lead the unionization campaign, “almost seem like they’re trying to run us into the ground.”

It’s a sentiment that has been echoed by some outside the plantation, as well.

During a recent school field trip to the plantation, Georgie Gladdys, a teacher from Scituate, found the village “unrecognizable” from the version she remembers from her own childhood voyages to the site. At one point, she says, she counted just four Pilgrims working in the 17th-century village — well below totals from years past.

“These kids are here to figure out some of our history,” Gladdys says, “and there was no one there to engage them.”

Citing these and other concerns, plantation employees narrowly voted to unionize in 2016, which Moore called an encouraging victory.

But in the months that followed, she says, some in management fostered a culture of anti-union sentiment. In a complaint later filed with the National Labor Relations Board, some employees accused plantation management of harassing and intimidating workers who’d supported unionization efforts, by denying access to bathrooms to known union supporters, for example, and surveilling them during a union rally.

But then, in a major about-face, in January a majority of the unionized employees presented management with a petition seeking to withdraw from the union. Plimoth Plantation said it no longer recognizes the union, while union leaders consider the petition from colleagues “tainted” because of management tactics.

Interpreter Phillip Messier sat by a fire in one of the homes at Plimoth Plantation as children observed. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

Several current and former employees said they believe the roots of the dispute and the current unhappiness lie ultimately in a feeling among some workers that management is attempting to strip the plantation of what has long made it unique — its devotion to “living history.”

The site’s actors, or “interpreters,” have long strived to ensure that every detail of the 17th-century village — from the type of wood used to build houses to the vocabulary employed when addressing visitors — is true to the time. Many study the period on their own, and some have even traveled abroad to learn more about the era they’re reconstructing.

So some employees bristled at changes they feel threaten that authenticity, including modern information placards inside the Colonial homes and the presence of managerial staff dressed in T-shirts and nametags walking the Colonial village.

Not exactly on the scale of the religious strife that brought the original Pilgrims to the New World, perhaps — but enough to foster ongoing resentment.

“Back in the heyday, that village was a hive of activity,” says Follansbee, the former worker who quit, in part, because of such decisions. “There was stuff happening. We were building houses by hand, from scratch — we had a crew of five or six guys who did that work. And one by one, they’ve either been alienated, driven out, or fired.”

In some ways, says Dawn Butkowsky, an interpreter and 25-year employee of the plantation, the museum has used employees’ love for the museum against them.

“It’s almost like an abusive relationship, because they know that you love it, because they know that you’re willing to give your all to the place for very little money,” she says. “Management has taken advantage of that.”

Sheehan, the museum spokeswoman, said any notion the plantation is in peril or sacrificing any of its original values is misguided.

“To suggest that any part of our experience is less than it used to be is, to me, a disservice to the incredible work that is going on here across every department,” she said.

She added that while there have been some job vacancies, there has been no overall reduction in staff — though she declined to provide current or past staffing totals.

Pointing to a number of recent grants, including a $260,000 pledge from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Sheehan described a healthy operation that is actively hiring for interpreter positions — and hasn’t had layoffs in many years. Any changes to the museum’s various exhibitions, she added, have been done solely to advance its educational mission and to accommodate changing guest interests.

Whether the behind-the-scenes conflict has had any effect on attendance is unclear; the museum declined to release admissions totals for the past few years, though its 2016 tax returns — the most recent available — showed total revenue of more than $15 million, nearly double that of the previous year.

Meanwhile, citing a recent ruling by the National Labor Relations Board upholding the museum’s decision to withdraw recognition of the union, Sheehan described the labor issue as resolved.

“During the process, we never engaged in any back-and-forth in the media intentionally, and certainly now that it’s behind us we’re not going to do that,” she said. “We’re just really focused on moving forward.”

Others aren’t quite ready to do the same.

According to Moore, a group of employees is strongly considering another push to get the union recognized. Meetings are underway to discuss next steps, and in a show of solidarity, she said, some employees have continued to wear their union pins on the job.

“I think they would like to see us all go away,” said Moore, one of the employees who have remained outspoken against management despite concerns over job security.

“I’m not ready to go away.”