Walt Disney Co. continues to face fallout from its scuttled plans to move 2,000 California employees to a proposed Florida campus — a controversial decision the company reversed last year following the return of Chief Executive Bob Iger.
In 2021, then-CEO Bob Chapek and parks and experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaroannounced plans to relocate employees supporting Disney theme parks and resorts — including the celebrated Imagineers — to a planned $1-billion office park in the Lake Nona area of Orlando, Fla. The move was designed for Disney to take advantage of Florida tax credits, but the cross-country shift was deeply unpopular among employees who were asked to uproot their lives in Southern California.
Now some Disney employees are suing the company over the canceled relocation.
According to a lawsuit filed Tuesday against Disney in Los Angeles County Superior Court, numerous workers heeded the company’s calls, dutifully sold their homes in the Los Angeles area and moved to Central Florida.
I can’t imagine having to move state to keep my job, but having to move from California to Florida especially feels like an outrageous demand. Not just because of distance but because…I mean, are you fucking serious?? Florida? You want me to move from the biggest, bluest, mostly progressive state…to Florida?
There’s no amount of compensation in the world that would make me do that. That’s borderline self-harm.
Dwyane Wade has more money than he’ll ever need and even he got the fuck out of Florida as soon as his contract was done because he knew it would be torture to keep his daughter there.
My parents and brother just moved from Oregon to Florida… like wtf. At least they have something there for them, uncles who own houses and business there giving them a place to stay and a steady job there. My brother was unemployed and looking to move anyway, but Florida? I’m just hoping they treat it as a stepping stone to getting back on their feet and then move to like Georgia or somewhere else nearby
Florida and Texas are absolute deal breakers. I won’t even travel to either of those shitholes.
I can’t imagine having to move state to keep my job
It used to be more common with some of the automaker jobs. Had friends who’s families moved all over the US to follow their work periodically.
If my employer wanted me to pick up stakes and move to the other side of the country, it would require SIGNIFICANT compensation. A massive raise, moving expenses, plus paying all the added on costs of selling my house.
I’m not choosing to move, you’re choosing to move me. Pay me. Full stop.
Best we can do is: do it or you lose your job.
This is exactly how it worked during most of my career which dates back to the Y2K preparations. I’ve noticed a significant shift in attitude in the past decade where even top tier IT resources are seen as easily replaceable as a mop and bucket.
This has become a common strategy for large businesses to cull their employees - “return to office”, relocating HQ; it’s done in hopes most of those employees opt to quit so the business doesn’t have to fire them / give them a severance or whatever.
Sounds like in this case the bluff was called.
This is a little different than “return to office”, these employees were already working at Disneyland and were told “No, no, we need you for an expansion at DisneyWORLD… Get up and go!”
Then after they went it was “jk, just foolin’. U mad bro?”
It’s crazy when you think about it. They picked up their lives, sold their homes in southern california, and moved to fucking central florida of all places. It’s such a massive, massive downgrade in every conceivable category to move from socal to central florida. Then to have the company that mandated this (probably under threat of termination) pull a bait-and-switch once the employees and their families had moved, I’d be lawyering up and suing too. I’d sue them to make me whole – put me back in the same neighborhood I left, in a same or better house (with the same or better loan amount and terms), and offset any losses (with interest) related to moving, my spouse’s loss of job and income, provide equivalent income and job placement for my spouse until they find an equal or better job, and guarantee my employment at current job and comp for the next 10 years (with a sparkling golden parachute if they terminate me earlier).
Imagine selling a house in Los Angeles in 2021, and then trying to buy a comparable house back today. That’s potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of detrimental reliance due to inflation, let alone all the other moving and transaction costs.
Edit:
“Mr. Fong also sold his home, which was a particularly painful decision because it was the family home he had grown up in and inherited,” the lawsuit said. Fong is a creative director of product design; his family home was in Los Angeles.
The judge ought to force Disney to pay enough for Mr. Fong to buy back his specific home – not just a “comparable” one – regardless of how much the new owners want for it.
In my limited understanding of California property taxes, I believe property values are only reassessed on the sale of the property, so if he was living in a house deeded to him by his parents, he might have been paying taxes on a decades-old appraisal. So even if they bought his exact house back for him, he’d still be stuck with significantly higher taxes, which he’d have to fight to be compensated for as well.
The value of knowing your neighbors is essentially priceless. Moving from a childhood home into a new neighborhood puts one in a new community of complete strangers, from which it can take decades to develop new neighborly relationships.
What a downgrade in life.
While there are no posts here defending Disney or disparaging the employees suing, I want to add why there is a major impact on people who move away from CA.
One thing that sets CA apart from I think the rest of the country is our limit on property tax increases. Most states, if not all others (I’m too lazy to check), raise your property based on assessed value on a regular basis. Some states do it every year, I think TX does it even more often. CA passed a law a long time ago saying that your house’s tax assessment only changes when you sell your house. It was intended to allow old people to stay in their houses when property values skyrocketed around them. It’s honestly amazing and the only reason I can keep the house I bought 12 years ago. Yes, it has loopholes that rich people can get around (buy the house with an LLC, then sell the LLC instead of selling the house), and it has also contributed to rising house values since nobody can sell their houses unless they get a significant salary increase or move out of state.
So these people are told they have to move out of state to some brand new facility for a super stable company. They plan to be in this new place for the rest of their career, so instead of keeping their CA house and trying to rent it they decide to do the easy thing and sell so they can buy a giant house in FL. Now they have to move back to CA, but the house they sold is both more expensive AND even if it were the same price their assess tax value went from $7000/year to $21,000/year. So they need at least a $14,000/year raise (after taxes!) just to be where they were when Disney told them to move plus some sort of post-retirement annuity to keep paying that extra tax rate.
Just once a year in TX, to clarify that point. It does lag behind true market value, and it’s limited to 10% per year if you live in the home.
Thanks for that!
For reference, CA is limited to 1.1% per year.
Don’t they know what Disney expects of them? Did they not see the employee training video?
I believe this scene is actually making fun of Hitler and the Nazis. Donald has to screw together the artillery shells and salute each time because here are repeated pictures of Hitler on the conveyor belt. He does a poor job.
Remember that Hitler was a politician who actually existed. People made jokes that made fun of him.
I was being facetious. Yes, it’s from a WWII called Der Fuherer’s Face and the whole thing is a dream.
“Boy, oh boy, am I glad to be an American.” - Donald Duck
Yet another attempt by Big Florida to create more Florida Man.
Disney probably cancelled the project after Rhonda started his woke shit.
