Earlier this week, Disneyland Resort President Josh D’Amaro sent a letter to the Anaheim City Council proposing they end two tax deals previously made with the resort. Now Senator Bernie Sanders has criticized the move, accusing the company of trying to avoid paying a “living wage.”
- Speaking to the Guardian, Sanders speculated that Disney was trying to avoid the implications of a November ballot measure that would raise the minimum wage for companies that accept tax benefits from the city.
- Saying it’s time for Disney to “get off of welfare and pay all of its workers a living wage,” Sanders went on to tell the site, “Disney is so nervous that the living wage ballot initiative in Anaheim is going to pass… it would rather end some of the corporate welfare it receives from local taxpayers than pay all 30,000 of its workers decent wages.”
- In response, Disneyland Resort spokeswoman Liz Jaeger told the Guardian, “Mr. Sanders continues to distort facts to grab headlines… [He] should focus on his own state of Vermont where the minimum wage is $10.50/hour.”
- As part of this letter to the city calling for an end to the tax deals, D’Amaro cited how the tax incentives the Resort had received had proven divisive in the community, adding that the agreements, “no longer serve the purpose for which they were intended.”
- D’Amaro made no mention of the ballot initiative in the letter and it remains unclear whether dissolving these two deals would exempt Disney from the measure if it were to pass.
- Last month, the Disneyland Resort reached an agreement with its largest unions — representing more than 8,600 Cast Members — to raise wages to $15 an hour starting in January 2019.
- Sanders has previously criticized Disney during rallies held in Southern California as well as on his Twitter account and other media endeavors.
