The Disney company was accused of greed by its maintenance workers at the Disneyland hotels in California, whom the American company allegedly underpaid for years, a US$1 million class action alleged.
“Disney has flouted the law by refusing to pay its employees what they are owed. Disney is a massive company. They know the law. But just like their character Uncle Scrooge, they choose to be stingy,” one of the lawyers representing the employees, from West Coast Trial Lawyers, told the New York Post on Thursday.
The amusement park and animated film giant was thus accused by 115 current and former employees of having deliberately violated their rights by refusing to follow salary standards, over a period of four years.
For example, the company allegedly required its employees to provide and pay for their own tools and equipment, without respecting the wages established by California wage ordinances, which require that an employee be paid “double the minimum wage” in this state. context, the lawsuit said.
The minimum wage in California is currently set at US$15.50.
As a bonus, they also did not benefit from a one-hour break period for a shift of more than four hours, thus depriving them of a “meal break bonus” to which they should have been entitled, according to the American media.
The class action alleges, in passing, that Disney did not “accurately detail salary declarations” with precise accounting of hours, to ensure that employees were correctly paid, noted the “NY Post”.
Since 2019, Disney was already the subject of a lawsuit for “widespread pay discrimination” for having presumably granted lower pay to its female employees since 2015.
The class action, which would be one of the largest equal pay law lawsuits, is expected to begin in October 2024.
