Elizabeth Warren Slams Disney For Layoffs, Large Compensation Packages For Executives

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., ripped into Disney on Wednesday for laying off 28,000 workers while restoring the salaries of its senior executives during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Disney said last month that it plans to lay off the employees due to the lack of attendance at parks. However, Warren wrote in a letter to Disney Executive Chairman Bob Iger and CEO Bob Chapek that the media company said it would restore the paychecks of executives to pre-COVID levels in August.

“I would like to know whether Disney's financial practices have impacted the company's decision to lay off workers and whether your company plans to extend health care or other critical benefits and protections to laid-off employees,” Warren wrote.

Warren demanded that Disney disclose which types of employees will be laid off, how layoff decisions were made, if Disney will provide health care coverage for laid-off employees, and the total compensation Disney gave its top executives in 2020.

Warren expects the information by Oct. 27.

Warren noted that Disney spent $47.9 billion in repurchasing its own stock from 2009 to 2018, as well as $5.4 billion in dividend payments. Also, Disney paid over $338 million in total compensation to 20 top executives in the three years before the pandemic.

Iger is forgoing his salary in 2020 and Chapek is forgoing half of his, which Warren called “a drop in the bucket” due to the compensation packages executives receive.

Warren also mentioned in the letter that Disney said the attendance issue was prominent in California due to COVID-19 restrictions that have prevented Disneyland from reopening.

“While your company has blamed your decision to lay off thousands of workers on California public health measures, which were implemented to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and save lives, nearly 6,400 of the employees you laid off are actually in Florida. And just last week, another 8,857 part-time employees were laid off, also in Florida,” she wrote.