Abigail Disney, The Socialist Eton, Boardroom Pay

 People

An heiress to the Disney family fortune has excoriated the media giant’s treatment of its workers after she made an undercover visit to Disneyland and found misery in the self-styled “happiest place on earth”.

Abigail Disney, 59, is hoping that her intervention will shame the Walt Disney Company and its well-rewarded chief executive, Robert Iger, 68, into improving conditions for staff who earn, on average, less than a thousandth of his pay package.

Despair, 

Eric Harald Macbeth Robertson (1887-1941)

Photo Credit: Glasgow Museums [CC BY-NC-ND]

Her trip to the theme park in Anaheim, southern California, was prompted by a despairing Facebook message from an employee there and came after a survey last year by a group of unions, which revealed that nearly three quarters of workers did not earn enough to pay for basic expenses and more than half feared eviction from their homes.

Ms Disney left the park angry at what she regarded as a betrayal of the principles espoused by her grandfather, Roy Disney, who co-founded the company with his brother Walt.

“Every single one of these people I talked to was saying, ‘I don’t know how I can maintain this face of joy and warmth when I have to go home and forage for food in other people’s garbage,’” she said. “I was so livid when I came out of there because my grandfather taught me to revere these people that take your tickets, that pour your soda.”

Ms Disney, a documentary-maker and peace activist, does not have a formal role in the company. However, her name has drawn global attention to her views on the rising pay gap between US workers and senior executives in general, and Disney in particular, which made a record profit of $12.6 billion last year. In a Washington Post editorial in April she criticised the “naked indecency” of Mr Iger’s pay last year of $65 million, noting that he made “1,424 times the median pay of a Disney worker”.

(The Times, 2019)

Why is the term “rising pay gap” used in this context? The chief executive is paid far too much, the Disney workforce paid far too little. With a profit of $12.6 billion made last year surely the company can pay its workforce more?

                                     
The Socialist Eton

A state school known as the “socialist Eton” has spent almost £15,000 on luxury Farrow and Ball paint.

Holland Park School in Kensington, West London, is facing a government investigation after buying the paint which sells at up to £62 for a 2.5 litre tin, and spending £6,000 on Jo Malone candles, which start at £47 each.

…A spokesman for the school, rated “outstanding” by Ofsted, said: “The ability to generate income and donations depends in part on the impression made by the school to visitors – creating a positive atmosphere in the reception area is important in this respect.”

In addition, £80,268 was spent on furnishings from Insider Dealing, a bespoke interior design company run by Sally Price, who is listed as a “friend” of the school on its website.

(The Times, 2019)

If true, public relations smarm.

Boardroom Pay

Work,
 Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893)
Photo Credit: Manchester Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-ND]

Big firms should share their profits with staff and give them a say in how chief executives are paid, or risk a breakdown of trust in the capitalist system, MPs said yesterday.

A report by the business select committee said a series of “shaming” decisions, including a £75 m bonus awarded to the boss of the house builder Persimmon, showed a need for further curbs on “executive greed…baked into the remuneration system”.

The report’s proposals include:

Workers on pay committees, profit sharing schemes to benefit staff, reducing “variable pay” bonuses, an absolute cap on executive pay, a new financial regulator to monitor pay schemes.

(The Guardian, 2019)

Another parliamentary report that will gather dust. Actions are needed not words.

*Hundreds of charities pay their bosses more than Boris Johnson earns as prime minister, it has been revealed.

The highest earning executive in the data collected from 278 charitable organisations makes £4.6 million a year.

Charities employ more than 2,500 staff on salaries in excess of £100,000 a year, The Daily Telegraph reported...

Helen Stephenson, the chief executive of the Charity Commission, said that organisations must justify their pay to the public. "All charities should be able to look donors and volunteers in the eye and say how their decisions about pay impacts on the cause they pursue or the people they help," she said...

According to the research, the Wellcome Trust has the highest-paid employee. Nick Moakes, its chief investment officer, took home £4.64 million including salary and bonuses last year, a rise of £1.3 million on the year before.

The trust, a health research charity, whose director, Sir Jeremy Farrar, earns £483,788, said that pay was linked to performance...

(Cameron Charters, The Times, 2021)