Sen. Bernie Sanders has come out swinging at The Walt Disney Co., charging that the company that Mickey Mouse built is greedily exploiting employees who work at Disneyland, its beloved California amusement park.
"Disney is a $150 billion corporation, which made $9 billion in profits last year … And, yet, while Disney’s profits soar through the stratosphere and its CEO receives an unimaginable amount of money, the wages and benefits for its workers are atrocious," Sanders, a Vermont independent, writes in Thursday’s Guardian.
“The people who walk around all day in Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck costumes, the workers who prepare and deliver the food, the men and women who collect tickets and manage the rides, make wages so low that they are barely surviving.”
Sanders says over 80 percent of Disneyland workers make less than $12 an hour and almost three-quarters say that they do not earn enough money to cover basic expenses every month.
"Incredibly, more than one out of 10 Disneyland Resort employees report having been homeless – or not having a place of their own to sleep – in the past two years," Sanders writes.
"The reality is that Disney’s greed, and the greed of corporate America, is destroying the social fabric of our country. This type of ruthless capitalism is not an economic model that we should be embracing. We can and we must do better."
Suzi Brown, vice president of Disneyland Resort Communications, said the company is developing an education program for its workers to bolster their careers.
“We are proud of our commitment to our cast, and the fact that more people choose to work at Disneyland Resort than anywhere else in Orange County,” she said in a statement. “While Mr. Sanders continues to criticize Disney to keep himself in the headlines, we continue to support our cast members through investments in wages and education.”
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