Abigail Disney Takes To Twitter To Criticize The Walt Disney Company’s Decision To Furlough Employees
Walt Disney’s niece Abigail Disney is taking to Twitter again to address what she sees as massive income inequality at the Walt Disney Company. This time in the face of the COVID-19 shutdown. In tweets that went out this week, she offered that she is flabbergasted at the company’s decision to furlough hundreds of thousands of low-paid workers while executives still get millions of dollars even with their pay cuts.
In a chain of tweets, her anger can be clearly seen in a post the starts, “WHAT THE ACTUAL F***?????” The outspoken heiress and daughter of the late Roy Disney (Walt’s brother) came down hard on Disney’s decision to furlough employees AFTER the company paid out dividends to shareholders and handed out executive bonuses.
The Walt Disney Co. announced at the start of the COVID-19 shutdown that they were furloughing all non-essential employees. This was a result of social distancing which meant the company needed to close the theme parks, cancel film premieres, halt production on films and more. It should be noted that more than 75% of the 223,000 employees fall into the “Parks and Products division.”
Here’s a look at Abigail Disney’s first tweet regarding the issue. For the complete chain of tweets we recommend that you go to her twitter page.
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….1/ https://t.co/G1mUq7RmAV
— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) April 21, 2020
This is not the first time that Disney has been a vocal opponent at what she sees as being income inequality at the company. She gave an interview with CNN last year where she slammed the company for failing to take care of its low-income workers who needed to fight to have their hourly wages increased to $15 an hour while executives are “collecting egregious bonuses.”
You can check out the original interview here:
As CNN tells us, Disney has previously called Bob Iger’s salary, who as CEO earned $47,535,560 last year “Insane” arguing that it was 911 times what the average Disney employee makes.
It should be noted that both Chapek and Iger took pay cuts at the start of the COVID-19 shutdown. However, in both instances, it has been pointed out that the cuts were made to base salaries with both executives standing to lose very little when you added in bonuses and stocks.
It should be noted that Abigail Disney doesn’t have an official role within Disney. She says of her advocacy, “I’m just a citizen who cares and I think that makes me free to say what I believe,” she said Tuesday. “But I am an heir. 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.”
This is a story that we’ll be following closely here at MickeyBlog so readers are encouraged to keep following along for the latest news and updates.
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Source: CNN
