Disney Heir Slams Company’s Plan to Furlough Employees to Maintain Corporate Bonuses
Filmmaker Abigail Disney is the daughter of Roy E. Disney — who was the son of Roy O. Disney, who was Walt Disney’s brother and co-founder of The Walt Disney Company. She is one of the very few people who can claim “Uncle Walt” was actually her uncle.
Despite her familial ties, Abigail Disney doesn’t work for the company, and she has occasionally been critical of it — typically when it comes to the subject of workers compensation. While the “cast members” who keep Disney’s theme parks and retail business going get by on low hourly wages, its executives earn tens of millions in bonuses — a disparity that’s only grown more stark during the age of the coronavirus pandemic. Yesterday, Abigail Disney posted a lengthy Twitter thread, taking the company and its leadership to task for furloughing some 100,000 employees in order to, according to an FT report, “protect executive bonus schemes and a $1.5 billion dividend payment due in July.”
You can find Disney’s entire thread here, but here are a few highlights.
As we’ve written about before — and as Abigail Disney openly admits in her thread — Disney faces tough days ahead. The diversity of its business that typically makes it such a powerful Hollywood juggernaut now makes it vulnerable, because its amusement parks and cruise ships will be closed for the immediate future and may continue to see lower demand until there is a vaccine or reliable treatment for coronavirus. Still, as Abigail Disney puts it “a crisis is always an opportunity.” And all she ultimately wants is for Disney to “pay the people who make the magic happen with respect and dignity they have more than earned.”
Gallery — The 15 Things We Miss Most About Movie Theaters:
Sign Up For Disney+ here.