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News > U.S.

Women Sue Walt Disney Studio for Contributing to Gender Pay Gap

  •  Disney’s U.K. branch said it “takes a holistic approach to addressing and ensuring gender equality in our workforce.”

    Disney’s U.K. branch said it “takes a holistic approach to addressing and ensuring gender equality in our workforce.” | Photo: Reuters

Published 3 April 2019
Opinion

Plaintiff say that “egregious gender pay gap that appears to be engrained in Disney’s culture.”

The Walt Disney Company is being sued by a pair of female employees who allege that the company subscribes to “widespread” gender discrimination and pays women significantly less than their male counterparts, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

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Plaintiffs La Ronda Rasmussen and Karen Moore say “egregious gender pay gap that appears to be engrained in Disney’s culture” and the studio routinely pays its female workers less for the same work.

Represented by the Los Angeles-based law firm, Andrus Anderson, is filing a class action lawsuit just one day after women around the world celebrated “Equal Pay Day,” a commemorative holiday held to bring awareness to gender and race discrimination in pay.

“This is apparently a worldwide problem, and we’re going to tackle it in California… Women are treated as cheap labor … and women are fed up with,” attorney Lori Andrus told the Guardian Wednesday.

According to the lawsuit, Rasmussen was hired as a senior financial analyst in 2008. After nine years, she found she was still making anywhere from US$16,000 to US$40,000 less than her male coworkers with even new hires receiving a higher pay despite her decade of experience with the company.

After thorough research, she discovered she makes an average of US$5,270 less than men’s salary and roughly US$34,000 less than male senior personages burdened with similar employment responsibilities.

“You can imagine how humiliating it is, especially … when your contribution is significant and longstanding. It’s just insulting to find out the guy who just graduated college a few years ago is making substantially more,” Andrus said, describing Rasmussen’s experience as “devastating.

While Moore says she was discouraged from applying for an available manager position which was later adjusted to a senior role before being offered to a male candidate.

In a state-required report, Disney’s U.K. branch said it “takes a holistic approach to addressing and ensuring gender equality in our workforce” and prided itself of the percentage of women they employ “across the organization and that we compensate and promote people based on their roles, experience and performance.”

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