Disney's heir paid $ 66 million to the CEO: "No one on the planet is worth anything" | American News

ABigail Disney is one of the most recognizable names in the world. But this week, she became a thorn in her famous family when she rose up against the huge salary of Bob Iger, general manager of the Walt Disney Company, and found herself at the center of a debate about inequality and extreme wealth.

Disney, 59, made the headlines after calling the Algiers pay package about $ 66 million worth of "insane". In an interview with The Guardian, she was unrepentant, describing some of the Walt Disney Company's financial promises to her employees as "a neoliberal trap" and calling on Iger to give up her extraordinary pay.

Disney, the grand-niece of Walt Disney, also mocked Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, for his treatment of low-paid Amazon workers in a broad conversation about big business.

Abigail Disney made waves in a series of tweets, condemning Iger's pay for "deepening the inequality of wealth". Iger earned $ 65.6 million in 2018, or 1,424 times the median salary of a Disney employee. The Walt Disney Company responded that it had agreed to pay a minimum wage of $ 15 by the time of 2021. It also announced its intention to spend $ 150 million for an initiative of Education to provide free university education.

But Disney, the grand-niece of Walt Disney, told the Guardian she found the response of the company "insulting".

"They say they are paying more than the federal minimum wage. But they know [$15 an hour] is not a living wage in Anaheim, "said Disney, referring to the southern California city, where Disneyland is located.

In 2017, the Guardian reported that some Disneyland workers were forced to live in their cars because of low wages. At that time, the Orange County Care Coordination Office estimated that the hourly wage needed to pay for a one-bedroom unit at a median price in Orange County was $ 25.46 last year, while According to a study conducted in 2018 by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a fee of $ 15 per hour was not enough to rent a two-bedroom rental unit in most American states.

"Then they continue saying that they offer education and upward mobility – and that it's a neoliberal trap," Disney said. She added that the company's response implied that people's current jobs were not valued.

"The presumption that every job is a job you need to do is to say that the work you are starting is not a real thing, or that it does not deserve all the respect and dignity that any other job deserves. "

Disney, who points out that she does not speak on behalf of her family, has found herself at the center of a wider discussion about income inequality in the United States, where the 1 % of the richest Americans owns more wealth than the poorest 90%.

Democratic candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have, in their 2020 policy proposals, both unveiled ambitious plans to tax the wealthiest Americans. Warren's ultra-millionaire tax would impose an additional 2% tax on households with a net worth greater than $ 50 million and a tax of 3% on those worth over $ 1 billion. .

As a member of a wealthy group of Americans called the Patriotic Millionaires, Abigail Disney is demanding higher taxes for the rich to fill this gap. For her, offering educational programs rather than living wages is "an insult" to some minimum wage workers who would be unable to accept the offer of higher education.

"Many of them are immigrants who were not educated in their own country. And if you do not speak your second language fluently, how are you going to access these jobs? So [it’s] a set of presumptions really about the middle clbad, "she said.

References to her grand-uncle's cartoon empire abound in Disney's offices in New York, where she runs her documentary company, Fork Films. A portrait of Pinocchio is hanging on one wall and a mischievous drawing of "Mickey Mao" on another, while a "Feminist AF" nameplate on his desk announced his philanthropic work. The charity Disney's Peace is Loud promotes women leaders around the world. She estimates that she has invested $ 70 million over the last 20 years.

The 59-year-old, whose grandfather Roy O Disney co-founded the Walt Disney Company with her animating brother, inherited part of her family's wealth and would be worth $ 500 million. She has no role to play in managing the Walt Disney Company, but said she was "deeply committed" to its meaning to people.

The company defended Iger's compensation, saying the CEO had "provided exceptional value" to the company's shareholders. Iger's share price rose to $ 135 per share in 2019 from $ 24 in 2005, and is valued at nearly $ 250 billion.

Abigail Disney, a shareholder of the company, benefited from this increase. She described Iger as a "brilliant man", who "deserves to be well rewarded".

"I also think he's a good man," she said.

But does that justify his $ 65.6 million salary?

"Nobody on this scary planet is worth that money," she said.

Abigail Disney also has strong opinions about Amazon. Senator Warren wants to separate the giant from retail to create a more level playing field. Disney has also criticized Bezos, the richest man in the world, with an estimated net worth of $ 156.1 billion.

"Jeff Bezos could just pay people well at Amazon," Disney said, pointing to the company's huge fortune.

Last October, Amazon – valued at over a billion dollars and making record profits of more than $ 1 billion a month in the first quarter of 2019 – is committed to raising its salary minimum at $ 15 at the hour after years of worker protests. But critics say that is not enough.

Some employees said Amazon's simultaneous reduction in premiums had canceled the increase and that the company had also been criticized for its poor working conditions. The Guardian found that in November, the month when the increase to $ 15 per hour was effective, part-time work hours at Whole Food, owned by Amazon.

In a statement, Amazon said the full-time staff of Whole Foods' stores had done the same number of hours in January and February 2019 as it had done in the same period last year ". He added that the allegations that there was "a reduction in the number of hours due to the increase in wages" were false.

The company said, "Employees are the heart and soul of our operations and we work hard to ensure a safe, comfortable and modern work environment, as well as opportunities for upward mobility. […] We encourage anyone to compare our salary and benefits to those of other retailers. "

His comments come as the pay gap between CEOs and workers widens and the debate on extreme wealth takes on a new urgency. A union report from the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations revealed that in 2017, CEOs of large US companies earned 361 times more money than the average worker, a ratio of 42 versus 1 in 1980 and 20-to-1 in 1950. For Disney, change can only be led by wealthy individuals like Iger who makes sacrifices. One solution, she suggested, would be for Iger and the other CEOs to tell their companies not to pay them as much.

"It's possible to say no to money," she said. "If the CEOs do not lead that by making a conscious change of mind, then I do not know where we are going."