Abigail Disney: Our CEO's Pay 'Insane'

Disney co-founder's granddaughter addresses pay disparity between Bob Iger, workers
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 22, 2019 11:19 AM CDT
Updated Apr 22, 2019 11:22 AM CDT
Abigail Disney: Bob Iger's Pay 'Insane'
In this May 10, 2012 file photo, Abigail E. Disney appears at the New York Women's Foundation breakfast in New York.   (Marion Curtis/Starpix via AP, File)

Disney CEO Bob Iger got an 80% raise last year, and is currently making $65.6 million. One of the members of the Disney family thinks that's "insane." Abigail Disney, granddaughter of Walt Disney Company co-founder Roy Disney, spoke at the Fast Company Impact Council last week on a panel about practicing "humane capitalism." The filmmaker and activist for corporate social responsibility said some employees at the Disneyland theme park in California have seen their benefits reduced and are struggling to pay for medicine and other necessities. That's not good, said Disney, though she made it clear that she likes Iger and thinks he's a good person. "But I think he’s allowing himself to go down a road that is the road everyone is going down." One study found Iger's compensation is 1,424 times that of the median Disney employee.

"When he got his bonus last year, I did the math, and I figured out that he could have given personally, out of pocket, a 15% raise to everyone who worked at Disneyland, and still walked away with $10 million," she said. "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." The Walt Disney Co. responded in a statement that it pays Disneyland employees a starting wage of $15 per hour. As Deadline notes, Disney responded in a Twitter thread, arguing that "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." Of Iger's pay, she said, "by any objective measure a pay ratio over a thousand is insane." (More Bob Iger stories.)

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