News/Commentary

Disney employees rebel against CEO’s ‘post-COVID’ mandate to return to office for work

February 20, 2023 | | Print Article

Big changes at Disney that have resulted in CEO Bob Iger slashing staff to cut costs as well as a mandate for corporate employees to return to the office to work for four days a week beginning next month have sparked a rebellion from workers who are calling for him to change his mind on a resumption of pre-pandemic conditions.

With the company having recently announced 7,000 layoffs, the prospect that they would have to give up their flexible working experience did not sit well with around 2,300 people drawing their paychecks from Disney who are publicly revolting with a petition urging their boss to reconsider, choosing to wage a high-profile battle through the media.

“This policy will slow, or even reverse, our post-COVID recovery and growth by creating critical resource shortages and causing irreplaceable institutional knowledge loss,” the employees wrote in their petition that was first reported by The Washington Post, one of the top megaphones for the left-wing cultural revolution that is taking place in America.

The disgruntled employees are upset that they were not consulted regarding Iger’s mandate and claim that the changes will result in some feeling that they are being “forced out” while predicting that the mandate would result in voluntary resignations if it goes into effect.

“I think everyone has adjusted really well to the flexibility at Disney that was rolled out during the pandemic,” one Disney employee told The Washington Post. “For that to all go away suddenly was really scary for a lot of people.”

“Sitting on Zoom calls in an office for four days a week while your co-workers, partners, stakeholders, vendors, and customers do the same in a different part of the world does not meet the core need,” the petition states. “There is value in being together, but we also need to look forward and embrace new paradigms that add value.”

“More than 400 of the testimonials submitted with the petition came from parents. Others came from employees who describe themselves as neurodivergent — with conditions such as attention-deficit, autism, dyslexia, or other neurological differences — and workers with disabilities who worry that spending more time in the office would take a toll on them,” the Post reported.

Iger, the entertainment giant’s former leader was brought back last year to right the ship after former CEO Bob Chapek’s disastrous tenure as the head of the Kingdom of the Mouse, one marked by declining revenues as a result of public rejection of the company’s shift away from the family-friendly fare that it was once famous for in favor of promoting the perverted agenda of the “woke “left as well as a poorly thought out battle with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over the state’s parental rights law protecting children from groomers in classrooms.

The company’s defiant public stance against the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill cost the company dearly with its longtime privilege of a special taxing district for its sprawling Orlando theme parks being revoked by the state legislature and DeSantis with Disney now being treated like every other corporation in the Sunshine State, a costly consequence of Chapek’s embrace of wokeness.

“Disney is going to pay its debt,” DeSantis said earlier this month after he was given the power to rename Reedy Creek Improvement District and appoint the members of its board. “There’s a new sheriff in town.”

Given the reaction to Disney’s promotion of a product that evangelizes for anti-white Critical Race Theory concepts and transgenderism that have alienated millions of consumers, Iger has a tough rock to roll to restore the company’s once-golden brand that has been tarnished by twisted “woke” degenerates determined to propagandize audiences into the acceptance of their ideology.

Disney recently aired a costly ad spot during the Super Bowl seeking to rekindle the magic with a trip down memory lane complete with Steamboat Willie and other classic characters that harkened back to the era when the cartoon and movie colossus regularly produced wholesome and entertaining content that was beloved to generations of Americans.

(Video: The Daily Mail)

The Super Bowl ad drew grumbling from Twitter users who criticized the cost – about $7 million per this year’s rates – of the prime placement at a time when employees were being given their pink slips.

“This is a standoff, like an old-fashioned cowboy standoff right now,” said Laurie Ruettimann, a Raleigh, N.C. human resources consultant who was quoted by the WaPo. “I would not dare workers to choose between returning to the office and their jobs, because they may learn to live with a little less in the long- term.”

“Workers feel like they did a really good job of demonstrating trust and showing up during the pandemic,” she said of the petition. “Coming back to the office through a mandate seems punitive, and it certainly isn’t something most workers were consulted on.”

DONATE TO AMERICAN WIRE

If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to American Wire News to help us fight them.

$10
$15
$25
$50
Other
$
Thank you for your donation!
Chris Donaldson
Latest posts by Chris Donaldson (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles