Walt Disney Co. Calls Heiress Investigation a ‘Stunt’

Posted on by Kailyn Hayes, DI

Walt Disney Company continues to fight off allegations made by family heiress Abigail Disney, who claims she found workers severely struggling when she visited Disneyland.

What We Know:

  • During an interview with Yahoo News, Abigail Disney said Disneyland workers told her they have to go through “other people’s garbage” for food and they often have a hard time staying happy. She said she visited the park to see worker conditions and was “so livid” at what she saw.
  • In a statement, the company told CNN Business that Abigail Disney’s claims are baseless. “This widely reported stunt is a gross and unfair exaggeration of the facts that is not only a misrepresentation, but also an insult to the thousands of employees who are part of the Disney community,” a Disney spokesman said Wednesday.
  • “Disney is at the forefront of providing workforce education, which is widely recognized as the best way to create economic opportunity for employees and empower upward mobility,” the company said in a statement. The company further explained that it pays its workers an average of $19.50 an hour, which is more than double the federal minimum wage.
  • Disney CEO Bob Iger’s pay package is $66 million while the median salary of a Disney employee is $46,127. Abigail suggests that the company puts aside half of the bonuses the executives earn and distribute that to the bottom 10% of Disney’s 200,000 employees.
  • Abigail Disney told Yahoo that the work culture her grandfather Roy Disney promoted of respecting for employees had declined. “Those people are much of the recipe for success,” she told the outlet. The company still insists that it improves the lives of its workers and continues to respect them.

It seems unlikely that Abigail Disney will easily give up on this fight.

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