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The heiress to the vast Walt Disney media empire is blasting company executives for continuing to pay out some $1.5 billion in corporate bonuses while closing parks and furloughing 50 percent of their workforce.
As reported by Breitbart News, the world’s biggest entertainment conglomerate’s announcement this week that it would lay off half its workers comes after closing all theme parks, hotels, and retail outlets in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Disney stops paying 100,000 workers, roughly half its workforce, even as it protects executive bonus schemes and a $1.5 billion dividend payment due in July. https://t.co/7yyGs7XGXG
— Lisa Abramowicz (@lisaabramowicz1) April 19, 2020
While that may be understandable, Abigail Disney thinks paying out the bonuses while ordinary workers are let go is abominable.
Breitbart noted:
While executive chairman of Disney Bob Iger and CEO Bob Chapek decided to waive their salaries during the crisis, they will continue reaping the benefits of their compensation packages in incentive and bonus plans. Indeed, their annual salaries are only a small portion of their yearly compensation deals.
Disney took to Twitter to lambast their “nice rhetoric” that only hid the “pillaging and rampaging [of workers] by management.”
“OK, I’ve been holding my tongue on the theory that a pandemic is no time to be calling people out on anything other than failing us in a public health sense. I thought it might be a moment for peace and reconciliation. But I feel a thread coming on,” she began.
“WHAT THE ACTUAL F***????? Look, dividends aren’t ALL bad, given the number of fixed income folks who rely on them. But still 80% of shares are owned by the wealthiest 10%. So that excuse only goes so far. But the REAL outrage is, of course, those bonuses,” she wrote. “All 1.5 billion of them. 1.5 BILLION. That’d pay for three months salary to front line workers. And its going to people who have already been collecting egregious bonuses for years.”
WHAT THE ACTUAL F***????? Look, dividends aren't ALL bad, given the number of fixed income folks who rely on them. But still 80% of shares are owned by the wealthiest 10%. So that excuse only goes so far. But the REAL outrage is, of course, those bonuses…2/
— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) April 21, 2020
All 1.5 billion of them. 1.5 BILLION. That’d pay for three months salary to front line workers. And its going to people who have already been collecting egregious bonuses for years. Here is what the @ft piece has to say about it: 3/
— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) April 21, 2020
Call attention to the fact that they were giving up a portion of their salaries for the year. I told people to wait until we heard about the rest of the compensation package, since salary is a drop in the bucket to these guys. The real payday is in the rest of the package 6/
— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) April 21, 2020
Last year, Abigail Disney blasted Iger for earning “roughly 173 times the median Disney worker’s” salary.
Also, Breitbart News noted that she was pushing for a “wealth tax” as part of a George Soros-backed activist group. In 2014, the site noted further, she joined with anti-Jewish groups to call for divesting in Israeli companies. So, she’s quite the Left-winger.
Still, her anger at Iger and other Disney execs will no doubt resonate as more than 26 million Americans have been laid off due to coronavirus-related shutdowns, according to newly-released figures.
In her Twitter thread, Abigail Disney acknowledged that while she is not a member of Disney’s management, she is an heir, and as such, she’s got a personal stake in how the company behaves.
“And I do carry this name with me everywhere. And I have a conscience which makes it very difficult for me to sit by when I see abuses taking place with that name attached to them.”
But it gets worse. The front line workers at the parks had to fight for years to get their pay bumped up to $15/hr and the pr folks touted that as incredible magnanimity on management's park, but if you know the back story, which I do, you would be horrified to know just 8/
— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) April 21, 2020
being full time) 52 weeks a year (again a big if, esp since they don't have paid sick days unless they get 40 hours, which, see above parenthetical statement) they pull down 31,200 per year. Sounds nice till you consider gas prices and the housing market in Orange County 10/
— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) April 21, 2020
And 173x his median workers pay, plus another 15MM over the long term. What kind of person is comfortable with this??? If you have a shred of empathy in your body, if you care even a little about your employees, if you believe a word of your nice rhetoric about how, 12/
— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) April 21, 2020
THIS COMPANY MUST DO BETTER. Disney faces a rough couple of years, to be sure. The challenges are existential, even. But that does not constitute permission to continue pillaging and rampaging by management. In fact, if a bonus reflects performance, we might want to claw 14/
— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) April 21, 2020
What’s interesting is that the far Left eats itself. Though Abigail Disney the Leftist is railing at Iger and the company he runs, under his management Disney has implemented some of the most liberal policies you can imagine, as the Washington Examiner noted in June 2018:
If Disney were operating strictly with an eye towards maximizing profit, they wouldn’t go out of their way to inject leftist ideology into their products. In fact, they would presumably seek to steer clear of politics altogether, or even attempt to selectively cater to both left- and right-leaning young people, especially if recent polls denoting the increasing prevalence of conservatism of Generation Z are taken into account.
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