Roy Disney’s granddaughter calls on Disney to give employees a raise

Abigail Disney, the granddaughter of Walt Disney co-founder Roy Disney, on Sunday called on the company to give its employees a raise.

Disney made the remark during a series of tweets about the company in which she called on the company to shift “some of the profits” to employees.

Her comments came after she criticized Disney CEO Bob Iger’s 2018 compensation of $65.6 million, calling it “insane” on Thursday during a conversation about “humane capitalism” hosted by Fast Company.

{mosads}“So there’s a point at which there’s just too much going around the top of the system into this class of people who — I’m sorry this is radical — have too much money,” she said, according to The Washington Post.

In a statement to Fast Company, the Walt Disney company defended its pay of workers.

“Disney has made historic investments to expand the earning potential and upward mobility of our workers, implementing a starting hourly wage of $15 at Disneyland that’s double the federal minimum wage, and committing up to $150 million for a groundbreaking education initiative that gives our hourly employees the opportunity to obtain a college or vocational degree completely free of charge,” the company said.

Abigail Disney responded Sunday with a series of tweets, saying that “by any objective measure a pay ratio over a thousand is insane” and criticizing the company for citing the federal minimum wage.

“To brush aside criticism of the low wage you pay workers at the company by saying you pay more than the Federal Minimum Wage and that you provide opportunities for education is a dodge. We all know the Federal Minimum is too low to live on,” she said.

In a later tweet, she noted that the company gave bonuses to its employees following the GOP tax bill but said a raise would be better than a bonus.

“It’s nice to give a bonus to a person pulling down a salary. Everybody loves that. You know what everybody loves more than that? A raise,” she said. 

To brush aside criticism of the low wage you pay workers at the company by saying you pay more than the Federal Minimum Wage and that you provide opportunities for education is a dodge. We all know the Federal Minimum is too low to live on. So why must we, at a company that’s…

— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) April 21, 2019

It’s nice to give a bonus to a person pulling down a salary. Everybody loves that. You know what everybody loves more than that? A raise. And if the tax cut makes a bonus possible and that tax cut is permanent doesn’t it stand to reason you could have given a raise instead?

— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) April 21, 2019