Walt Disney corporation treats workers like shit

This video from the USA says about itself:

Some Disneyland Employees Are Facing Homelessness Working At ‘The Happiest Place On Earth’ (HBO)

10 May 2018

ANAHEIM, California — Low-wage workers are being priced out of Orange County, the posh suburbs south of Los Angeles. That’s especially true in the city of Anaheim, and its largest employer: Disney.

The unions representing Disney’s lowest-paid workers have banded with other unions in Anaheim to put a measure on the ballot: a new minimum wage for the hotel and restaurant workers at the city’s largest resorts that would pay $15 per hour by 2019, and gradually increase to $18 per hour by 2022. (California’s minimum wage is set to increase to $15 per hour in 2021.) Raises thereafter would be at least 2 percent per year.

The push for a ballot measure has drawn the ire of the city, and Disney itself. The company is co-funding the group pushing against the measure, with the subtle name No To The Anaheim Job Killer Initiative.

…

Disney workers say they can’t live in Anaheim — or most places in Orange County — while earning less than $15 per hour.

By Senator Bernie Sanders from the USA today:

Disney represents much of what is wrong with contemporary capitalism

The Walt Disney Company is an enormously profitable corporation worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 billion. Last year, it made $9 billion in profits and rewarded its CEO, Bob Iger, with a compensation package worth up to $423 million over a four-year period. And as a result of the Trump tax cuts, they were given an additional $1.6 billion.

At the same time — and this is a national disgrace — employees at the company’s theme park in Anaheim, California are paid so poorly that many of them are literally living in a tent city not far from the park.

According to one recent study, nearly 1 in 10 workers employed at the park reported being homeless in the past two years, more than 2 in 3 say they are food insecure, and 3 out of 4 employees say they do not make enough money for their basic needs.

This is not what Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are supposed to be about.

Probably closer to what Uncle Scrooge is supposed to be about. Or, still more closely, the Charles Dickens character Ebenezer Scrooge, on which Uncle Scrooge is based.

This does not sound like the “happiest place on Earth” to me.

Now, I could be wrong, but I don’t expect you will see the plight of these low-wage workers at Disney discussed tonight on ABC, which is owned by Disney. Nor do I think you will be hearing too much about income and wealth inequality in the mainstream media.

That is why I am heading to California this weekend to rally with these workers and union organizers fighting to demand that Disney pay all of its workers a living wage.

Those workers could use your support as well:

Please sign my petition to Disney CEO Bob Iger: The greed at the Disney Company has got to end. It is time to pay all Disney employees a living wage of at least $15 per hour. Nothing less.

It is long past time that we, as a nation, stop worshipping the corporate greed of Disney and businessmen like Bob Iger, their CEO.

While he may be regarded as a brilliant and successful businessman among his peers in the financial, media, and political elite, the truth is that the way Bob Iger and Disney treat their workers represents much of what is wrong with contemporary capitalism.

This is a company, and a CEO, that accepted an obscene tax cut gifted to them by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress, publicly promised to anyone who would listen a $1,000 bonus for all of their employees, and then withheld that bonus from some union employees unless they agreed to a contract that gave them a tiny raise to a wage that is still a starvation wage.

This is a company, and a CEO, that in addition to paying their workers here at home extremely low wages, employs many thousands of people in China to manufacture their products sold at Disney stores and online.

This type of greed and ruthless capitalism is not an economic model that we should be embracing. It is not to be celebrated. We can do better, and we must do better.

That is why this weekend I am heading to California to stand with Disney’s workers and to demand that Disney pay them wages and benefits which allow them to live with dignity and security.

I want to bring your voice with me. Make them hear the outrage that so many of us feel with regard to this type of economic exploitation.

Please sign my petition to Disney CEO Bob Iger: The greed at the Disney Company has got to end. It is time to pay all Disney employees a living wage of at least $15 per hour. Nothing less.

In addition to my event with Disney workers and union leaders, I will visit Carson, California for a town hall with port truck drivers, who handle 40 percent of consumer goods and merchandise imported into our country – and warehouse workers serving the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach. These are some of the most abused and exploited workers in America, and I intend to support them and demand that they are paid a living wage with decent benefits.

I am also very excited to join Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors and Real Justice co-founder Shaun King for a rally to discuss the steps we must take to radically reform our broken criminal justice system.

I hope you will stay tuned to our social media channels for live video from these stops. And I will be in touch when they are over.

The Political Revolution continues.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

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Paid for by Friends of Bernie Sanders

(not the billionaires)

PO BOX 391, Burlington, VT 05402

One worker killed, one injured hours apart at Florida’s Walt Disney World: here.

A worker has died after falling into a vat of oil at a facility near Walt Disney World.

Sixty-one-year-old worker dies in horrific fall into vat of oil near Disney World: here.

YES, THE RENT IS TOO (YOU FILL IN THE BLANK) HIGH “There is not one U.S. state, metropolitan area or county in which someone working a 40-hour week on the federal minimum wage of $7.25 can afford to rent a modest two-bed apartment.” [HuffPost]

America’s housing crisis is forcing people to live in their cars.

17 thoughts on “Walt Disney corporation treats workers like shit”

On Monday night I went to Senator Bernie Sanders’ CEOs vs. Workers Townhall and listened to workers from Amazon, McDonald’s, Disney, Walmart and American Airlines sharing their stories.

I was haunted by what I heard: Americans who work for the most wildly profitable corporations in the country are struggling to get by on poverty wages. Their stories kept me up all night.

The workers we heard from are some of the hardest working, bravest, and most caring people you can imagine. People like:

Artemis Bell, who has worked full time at Disneyland for 14 years and still only earns $11.86 an hour. Some of her “happiest place in the world” colleagues are living – and in one tragic case, dying – in their cars because they can’t afford housing.
Cynthia Murray, a Walmart employee for more than 18 years, who is STILL not making a livable wage. She told us how this global giant of a company, owned by the richest family in America, puts out food donation boxes so their employees – many on Medicaid, in public housing and on food stamps – can donate to help each other eat.
Seth King, a former Amazon worker, veteran, and father of two, who was working two jobs and still not earning enough to make ends meet. He asked himself, “if this is the best my life is going to get, why am I even still here?”
Adriana Alverez, a McDonald’s employee and single mother of a six-year-old boy. She asked, “what’s a vacation?” This global behemoth of a company doesn’t give employees like Adriana any form of paid leave.
Heather Hudson, a single mom of four, working with an American Airlines affiliate for only $14.50 an hour after more than a decade of full-time employment for the company. She qualifies for food stamps because she cannot survive on only the poverty wages handed down by this wildly profitable American company.

What is happening to the workers of this country, at the hands of the richest—the most unimaginably, wildly wealthy—CEOs and companies in this country, is unconscionable.

Which begs the question: How do these CEOs sleep at night?

We cannot sit by while billionaire CEOs continue to dodge federal taxes while keeping their hardworking employees at or under the poverty line. Our Revolution groups across the country are volunteering to elect candidates who will prioritize American workers over CEO profits. Can you chip in $7 right now to help us hold these greedy CEOs accountable?

These stories of suffering, fuelled by incredible corporate greed, are the stories of tens of millions of working Americans. And they’re written by America’s largest and most unbelievably profitable companies, who pay their CEOs levels of compensation that would lift the entire bottom half of our country out of poverty.

Companies like Amazon, which paid no taxes last year and brags of their year-over-year profits without acknowledging that these incredible earnings are achieved off the backs of hard-working Americans like Seth. These companies purposely drive their workers to the brink of exhaustion and despair. It’s success off the back of suffering, and it needs to stop.

Will you help us stand up to these greedy CEOs and hold them accountable to their employees? Help out by donating what you can now, to fund our efforts across the country electing and supporting progressive candidates who are ready to take on this fight.

Heather, the employee with American Airlines, said something I find deeply disturbing. She said, “you will never understand how humiliating it is to be at the Social Security office, in line – with your coworkers.”

A company like American Airlines that made $1.9 billion last year should not have its long-tenured, loyal workers lining up to be funded by our taxpayer dollars. It is dead wrong that your tax dollars go to supporting the workers of America’s most profoundly wealthy companies – companies who CAN and should pay their workers a living wage.

It’s time they share the profits with their workers.

Thank you for being part of the political revolution that is fighting to end corporate greed.

In solidarity,

Nina Turner
President
Our Revolution

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