The Walt Disney Company has a reputation for lobbying hard on copyright issues. The 1998 copyright extension has even been dubbed the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” by activists like Lawrence Lessig that have worked to reform copyright laws.
This year, the company is turning to its employees to fund some of that battle. Disney CEO Bob Iger has sent a letter to the company’s employees, asking for them to open their hearts—and their wallets—to the company’s political action committee, DisneyPAC.
In the letter, which was provided to Ars by a Disney employee, Iger tells workers about his company's recent intellectual property victories, including stronger IP protections in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a Supreme Court victory that destroyed Aereo, and continued vigilance about the "state of copyright law in the digital environment." It also mentions that Disney is seeking an opening to lower the corporate tax rate.
Specific points:
- This is apparently common.
- Disney even offers automatic deduction from your payroll; how thoughtful!
- Legally, this isn't supposed to affect you and your employment (not provably, at least).
This is kind of ridiculous.
Related Stories
Disney whistleblower told SEC the company inflated revenue for years
A former Walt Disney Co. accountant says she has filed a series of whistleblower tips with the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging the company has materially overstated revenue for years.
Sandra Kuba, formerly a senior financial analyst in Disney's revenue-operations department who worked for the company for 18 years, alleges that employees working in the parks-and-resorts business segment systematically overstated revenue by billions of dollars by exploiting weaknesses in the company's accounting software.
[...] A Disney spokesperson said the company had reviewed the whistleblower's claims and found that they were "utterly without merit."
Kuba's whistleblower filings, which have been reviewed by MarketWatch, outline several ways employees allegedly boosted revenue, including recording fictitious revenue for complimentary golf rounds or for free guest promotions. Another alleged action Kuba described in her SEC filing involved recording revenue for $500 gift cards at their face value even when guests paid a discounted rate of $395.
[...] Kuba's filing alleges that flaws in the accounting software made the manipulation difficult to trace, though the consequences could be significant. In just one financial year, 2008-09, Disney's annual revenue could have been overstated by as much as $6 billion, Kuba's whistleblower filing alleges. The parks-and-resorts business segment reported total revenue of $10.6 billion in 2009, according to its annual report filed with the SEC.
Also at Deadline and Bloomberg.
Related: Disney Asks Employees to Contribute Towards DisneyPAC, TPP
Disney to Buy 21st Century Fox Assets for $52.4 Billion in Historic Hollywood Merger
Disney May Be Trying to Buy More of Hulu From AT&T's WarnerMedia
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 27 2016, @01:24PM
If I worked at Disney I would probably kick in $150, because they monitor that kind of stuff.
I spent many years at a large software company they did something similar, only for a charity for the poor rather than a PAC. I always contributed to their charity so I wouldn't given them (yet another) reason to wonder why I wasn't a team player when it came time to draw up the layoff lists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 27 2016, @04:57PM
and yet, coerced payment of union dues is somehow a violation of employee free speech... but i get that...unions are evil, amiright?
Abbott Laboratories had the same "encouragements" for employees to "help" PhRMA too.
US military & government employees get the same full-court press to contribute to the CFC. but at least that has a large set of charities one can supposedly direct one's funds to.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday February 28 2016, @04:22AM
> US military & government employees get the same
And defense contractors. When I was coming up on my first anniversary of employment at a private company that specialized in contract work for the Department of Defense, they sent me a letter asking me to donate $5000 of my pay to their PAC, which they explained would help the company get more defense business, enabling them to keep us all employed. Would've been pretty hard to miss that hint, the way they all but beat me over the head with it. I thought the whole thing stank. Seemed highly improper and cheeky. Were they trying to get around some rules about contribution limits by asking every individual in the company to "donate"? But if that was the game, shouldn't I have been offered a raise of, oh, about $5000 at about the same time as I was asked to contribute? No mention was made of any raise. I wasn't making a 6 figure income. Maybe $5000 is no big deal to an executive, but at my level of income being asked to give up that much was painful. I decided to play dumb, never responded in any way to the letter. Let them wonder if I even received it. I should have kept the letter, as something like that could be useful for, say, a wrongful termination suit if I were to be abruptly terminated a few months later over some flimsy excuse. As matters turned out, I was moved to a project which failed a year later, and every lowly peon involved was terminated. As that was the project I was originally hired for, I don't think the move had anything to do with retaliation for not contributing to the PAC.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 27 2016, @06:54PM
3 different Fortune 300 companies have taken no interest in who fails to donate.
Some do, some don't. I predict that you would not, AMD would suffer no consequences. That's 20 years of experience talking.
Some owners might be illegally heavy handed, but that's unlikely. And based on reading Google results for 5 minutes. Disney in this group is really super unlikely.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 27 2016, @09:10PM
remember these magic words if ever confronted over something silly like that "oh I must have missed that email"
The company I work at sends out junk like this all the time. I ignore them as usually they are *exactly* the wrong thing to do morally and legally. But thats what I get working for a phone company.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Yaa101 on Saturday February 27 2016, @01:45PM
scenario1: And as reward we will replace you with a H-1B visa holder...
scenario2: Why didn't you support our cause with part of your paycheck? Let's replace you with a H-1B visa holder...
No comment...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 27 2016, @02:08PM
I was working for a non-IT company, run by a rich family with lots of charitable activities. At one point, they decided it would be nice to have every employee donate a weekend to one of their pet projects, and sent out a cheerful email to that effect.
I wrote back, declining the "offer" to give up my weekend for their project, and suggesting that if they were to continue to try to force their employees to give up their personal time so that the owners could feel good about themselves, I would find a new job.
They then sent out an email saying that they received 63 positive responses and 1 negative one, but they decided not to pursue this mandate.
Of course, if you're a H1B foreign worker, you don't have the ability to walk away from such demands. Just one more reason why big companies just love them some indentured servants.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 27 2016, @04:00PM
Yes I always avoid that kind of trap. It's like when the supermarket or fast food place asks you if you want to contribute a dollar to (insert charity here). I always refuse. They get all the credit (Oh look McBurger Chicken is so good we donated $10 million to Charity X this year) and pay none of the money. Or when they decide to "match" donations, they get all the credit and only pay half the money. I do my own charity and I do it to actually help people that need help, not to feel good about myself but because I know if I don't help probably no one will. Fortunately with my skills I also have something very practical and important to offer them. Posted anonymously because I don't want credit for it either.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 27 2016, @02:11PM
Their IT staff is exempted because they are not employees.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bobs on Saturday February 27 2016, @02:13PM
I admire Walt Disney and his accomplishments.
I respect Iger’s business strategy of focusing on “franchises” that Disney Inc can build upon instead of a bunch of ‘one-off’ movies about random things.
But turn’s out he is a selfish ass and I wouldn’t want to work with or for him. He treats his employees like shit.
This is a bad long-term strategy and will eventually damage the organization.
Between this and dumping his IT employees it looks like typical narcissistic MBA-behavior where you value dollars over people and don’t understand/appreciate the value in creating a strong culture that supports and engages people to support building the organization over the long-term.
Although, he may consider leaning on his employees to contribute to his lobbying firm building for the long-term ;)
There is a huge value-add to the business when you have employees who care about it succeeding and who are actively looking for ways to make it run better. You lose this when you outsource to a bunch orf remote contractors who don’t care / know enough to have insights. But that is hard to quantify to the MBA’s.
Again, seems to lack compassion and is not considering it from the employees point of view. What a putz.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by deadstick on Saturday February 27 2016, @02:58PM
I admire Walt Disney and his accomplishments.
I admire Ub Iwerks's more. He did the creation and Disney did the money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 27 2016, @04:41PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_33 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Saturday February 27 2016, @03:56PM
The downside to outsourcing as much as possible is you don't have any employees left to contribute.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by TheReaperD on Saturday February 27 2016, @05:00PM
So now, not only does the 1% want to use money to keep the power they have an expand it further but, now they're getting cocky enough to ask the rest of us to pay for the "privilege" of being ruled by them. It the same as paying taxes to an occupying nation for the privilege of being conquered by them.
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 07 2016, @09:50PM
Have you read any history ever? Where do you think the first royalty got their wealth from?
It certainly wasn't the fruits of their hard labor (unless their hard labor is 'learning to oppress the peasants and use them as fodder against rivals, while cosying up with potential rivals to make them temporary allies.)
Disney is just following the old pattern of 'give the peasants a little of what they want so they will appreciate you, then take a lot of what the peasants have to enrich you.'
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 27 2016, @07:46PM
I had assumed that the TPP [soylentnews.org] must be the work of Disney. This confirms it.