I enjoyed David Akadjian’s piece “Why Companies Like Disney Are Willing to Give Out Temporary Bonuses” because being a Central Florida resident, I have quite a beef with what this company has been doing for quite some time.
Disney World is Central Florida’s largest employer. They are a perfect microcosm of what is going on with the rest of this so-called “right to work” state.
First of all, Disney is doing pretty darn well. It’s the second-largest media conglomerate in the world. They own ABC, 21st Century Fox, Marvel Studios, and Lucasfilm just to name a few cash cows, as well as a couple of theme parks you might have heard of. They are raking in the cash with pure profits of $9 billion for 2017. The profits are expected to rise this year, and that will be on top of their massive corporate tax cut from 34% to 20%. This means that Disney could—if they wanted to--lift all of it’s workers out of poverty.
But they won’t.
According to Disney’s Unite Here, 11,046 of full-time union members make just a little over $10 an hour. According to the United Way of Florida, that’s not even ”survival”-level income for this area. The majority aren’t even surviving, and have horrifying stories of trying to cope with life working for the happiest place on earth.
I strongly urge you to watch 2017’s Florida Project, which has 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, chronicling poverty life in a nearby hotel from Disney World.
A one-time bonus truly is the least that Disney could do. The Disney employees will continue to make poverty wages, and taxpayers will continue to subsidize Disney so their employees can get food stamps to survive.
I don’t even mention healthcare because in order to qualify for Medicaid in Florida, a single mom with two kids has to make under $3,200 per year!! This is thanks to Rick Scott, who doesn’t believe the state has any responsibility to provide healthcare under any circumstance, except, of course, for high-level state officials. Rick Scott’s state-sponsored plan is so heavily subsidized that it requires him to pay just $360 a year for gold-plated health insurance.)
So Disney will not be passing on their massive savings to the workforce. Adding insult to injury, February is the time Disney annually hikes it's prices at Disney World, and this month is no different. —even though just one adult ticket to a park can now cost over $130, plus $20 just to park your car. That’s a price that has more than doubled in the past decade, far outpacing inflation. An average family visit for one week can expect to spend in the neighborhood of $5000. (Since the average salary of a Central Florida resident is under $30,000, that means saving wages of two months just to go.)
That’s a lot of dough.
The travel magazine Frommer’s has even named it “the one-percenting of Disney” in an article where they detail how the Disney parks have become playgrounds for the rich. This is in direct contradiction to Walt’s original vision of the parks being for everyone.
My consolation is that they’ll get their comeuppance within the next few years:
Right now, 40-something Gen X-ers are willing to cough up a mortgage payment or two to take their kids to Disney because they have fond memories of family trips when they were young.
But if today's kids are priced out, they won't feel the same Disney draw once they have kids of their own.
He’s right. My siblings and I grew up loving Mickey Mouse and Disney, but we stopped going when they got utterly ridiculous. (If I have a spare 5 grand, there are better options.) As a result, my kids don’t ever care to go---and that means their kids will likely never experience it.
But seriously---screw ‘em.
Disney is just taking advantage of ideology imposed by the complete dominance of the GOP in our state. Disney is out to make as much as they can for the few at the top, while paying out as little as possible to their workers responsible for their success, and getting the taxpayers to subsidize their employee’s basic necessities. As much as I bash Disney, at least they are paying $10 an hour and do provide some benefits. Most companies in this area run with Florida’s minimum wage of just $8 an hour and refuse to provide anything to their employees.
It truly is the happiest place on earth---if you are Ayn Rand.