Disney workers are planning to cap a week of 15-minute walkouts in protest over the company’s failure on Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill with a full-day walkout on Tuesday, March 22. Workers have directed criticism at CEO Bob Chapek for staying silent about the legislation, which would ban teachers from talking to students about sexual orientation and gender identity before fourth grade, until it had passed, and then coming out with a too-little-too-late negative response. It was a combination of totally ineffectual and setting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis up to increase his mini-Trump personal brand by railing against Disney as a “woke corporation.”
Disney insists it tried to change the bill in a behind-the-scenes effort, but that obviously failed while leaving the public impression that the company had no problem with the bill targeting LGBTQ kids. “Disney’s goal, according to Jeff Brandes, a Republican state senator who met with Ms. Adams, was to amend the bill’s language prohibiting classroom instruction for young children on ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’—which Disney felt singled out LGBT people—to ‘human sexuality’ and ‘sexual activity,’ which the company argued didn’t target any particular group of people,” The Wall Street Journal reports. Of course, singling out LGBTQ people was the entire point of the bill. Disney literally sent its lobbyists in to ask Republicans to change the language so the bill would do something other than they wanted it to do, and then expected people to believe that it had made its best effort.
RELATED: Disney employees stage walkouts after CEO's lackluster opposition to 'Don't Say Gay' bill
Workers are also expressing anger over the fact that Disney is moving more than 2,000 workers from California to Florida in search of big tax breaks. Now, some of those workers are pointing out that, to keep their jobs, they are being forced to move to a state with laws hostile to themselves or their kids.
The same day as the planned “Disney Do Better” walkout, Disney is holding a virtual discussion event, for which the invitation reads, “Employees can expect an honest conversation addressing the following: How does the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill and other pending legislation impact LGBTQ+ kids and families? Why have LGBTQ+BERG leaders and allies organized internally to hold the company accountable? What will it take to rebuild trust with our employees and LGBTQ+ communities?”
It’s not clear how many employees will participate in Tuesday’s full-day walkout, which is not a protected workplace action as the 15-minute ones have been—and because Disney employees are still not back working fully in the office. But significant numbers of workers have joined the 15-minute walkouts.
ESPN announcers have also offered onscreen solidarity with the workers walking out and otherwise opposing the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
At whereischapek.com, the site organizing the walkout and other actions, workers have spoken out about their disappointment with Chapek and Disney:
- ”Silence is supporting the abuser. That is common knowledge, and this bill is just another form of abuse against the LGBTQ+ community. I can’t say anything that’s more all encompassing than this statement has already said, but Disney has dropped the ball on this. I do not feel ‘included,’ or represented in any way. A company with as much influence as Disney should have made their position clear, and not in the wishy-washy, ‘both sides’ appeasing way that it tried to in any of the statements released so far. The bill has already passed, and there’s little to be done now, but we know that worse is coming. Who knows how long it will take for Florida to put out its own Anti-trans Child Abuse order, or worse. Disney needs to step up, or admit that it’s not actually defending the LGBTQ+ community at all.”
- ”I just moved to Central Florida as part of the larger WDI campus move, and this legislation and our response is so disheartening. I understood that moving entailed changing culture and politics, but I believed that I was largely 'protected' by that by this wonderful and inclusive company I work for. But the lack of true support has me gutted. Especially as I have stepchildren in schools here in Florida who themselves (and their friends) are at the age where they are figuring out who they are and their place in the world. I cannot fathom the effect it will have on this generation, and my heart is breaking for them.”
- ”I am the mom of a kid who is firmly and proudly a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. If we lived in Florida I would literally have to move to keep my child safe. If we lived in Texas, I could be investigated for child abuse because I simply unconditionally love my child. Candidly, it's really hard to come to work every day with my earnest passion for innovative creative knowing the company is financially backing the bigots who have set forth these legislations. Additionally, this is a disability issues as well. My child is autistic *and* LGBTQIA+ -- In the neurotypical community around 7% identify as LGBTQIA+ - in the neurodivergent community it's anywhere from 35 - 70% (the research is new which is why the numbers are varying so much right now)... Is this a company who doesn't support the neurodivergent community? I'm truly heartbroken over this.”
- ”I am not a danger kids need to be shielded from and it kills me that Disney, that I have loved my whole life, will not defend me or ANY members of the LGBTQ+ community. Talk is nothing without action.”
- ”Disney Leadership: Would you be proud to work for a company that gave money that you help generate to people who are reducing your family's safety?”
- ”The company's culpability goes far beyond media silence and political contributions. By relocating huge swaths of its business to Florida, the company is choosing to use its considerable cultural and economic influence to support the local governments enacting these hateful laws. Worse still, the company is telling thousands of its employees, its own beloved ‘cast members,’ that they must move there themselves or lose their jobs.”
- ”It is extremely problematic and disheartening that Bob Chapek says the company cares about inclusion and our employees when the company has demanded people in the DPEP segment to pick up and move their lives to FL. Not only is that making families uproot their entire lives but it is making them do so to a place that is not safe and for more than one reason!! Not only is FL a hostile environment for the LGBTQIA+ community but their Surgeon General is advising AGAINST the COVID vaccine for children which contradicts CDC guidelines. Even if the company is ‘reassessing’ their political contributions, it is contradictory to be investing into the FL economy by moving DPEP roles to FL.”
The Where Is Chapek site is calling on Disney to stop new construction and investment in Florida until the law is repealed; stop efforts to move workers to Florida; “create an employee resource group specializing in helping LGBTQ+ families navigate the state’s political and educational climate, and partner with other local groups for additional employee resources”; commit to protect workers from such laws; make “substantial contributions to The Trevor Project, Trans Life, and other human rights advocacy groups”; and create an LGBTQIA+ brand.
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