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Disneyland Resort workers sue, alleging the company has ignored a 2018 'living wage' ballot measure
In June, 2018, Lori Heybruch, a day custodian at Disney California Adventure Park, joins fellow Disney workers along with union employees as they protest for high wages at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, CA. (File Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
By Alicia Robinson | arobinson@scng.com | The Orange County Register
PUBLISHED: December 10, 2019 at 4:04 p.m. | UPDATED: December 11, 2019 at 2:40 p.m.
A lawsuit filed by a handful of current and former Disneyland employees may lead to a court's judgment on whether the Anaheim theme park operator is paying certain employees enough.
The legal question is whether Walt Disney Co. is exempt from requirements of Measure L, a "living wage" initiative Anaheim voters passed in November 2018. It called for businesses in the Anaheim Resort District that receive city tax subsidies to pay workers at least $15 an hour starting in January 2019, plus $1-an-hour increases annually through 2022.
Anaheim City Attorney Robert Fabela announced about a month before voters decided the measure that Disney would not be subject to its rules, because the company canceled tax incentive deals that would have funneled millions in hotel guest taxes away from city coffers and back to Disney in return for the construction of a luxury hotel – a development since dropped.
City leaders had previously said Anaheim was short on high-end accommodations, and such tax deals would help persuade businesses to make the big investment required to build them.
The city is not named in the lawsuit filed Friday, Dec. 6, in Orange County Superior Court; the defendants are Disney and Sodexo. But the case challenges Fabela's determination that a 1996 deal – in which Anaheim borrowed $546 million to build the Mickey & Friends parking garage and make street, landscaping and other improvements in the resort – wouldn't be considered a subsidy as described by the ballot initiative.
"The parking garage is on Disney property. Disney operates it and keeps all the revenues. When all of the construction costs are paid back, Disney will own the garage free and clear," the lawsuit states. "All this was paid for with what Disney would have otherwise paid in taxes."
Disney spokeswoman Liz Jaeger said Monday, "We have yet to see the lawsuit, but the union coalition is well aware that the city attorney has previously looked at this issue and clearly stated that Measure L does not apply to Disneyland Resort."
Unite Here Local 11 and several other unions representing Disney workers had campaigned for the ballot measure and are backing the workers who brought the recent suit.
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City officials have concluded the measure applies to two properties: Doubletree Guest Suites under an older agreement, and the Anaheim Hotel, owned by Wincome Group (which would receive subsidies under a 2016 deal), city spokesman Mike Lyster wrote in an email. He added, "We welcome and will take a look at any inquiry about who Measure L might apply to."
The lawsuit's five named plaintiffs, one of whom works in the park for food service contractor Sodexo, are seeking class action status. A dollar amount of the damages requested is not specified.
The plaintiffs were earning between $12 and $14.25 an hour, according to the suit; it also alleges some overtime and other money owed to the employees was not paid.
Disney has been criticized because a 2018 union-commissioned survey said some theme park workers struggled to afford food and health care or lived in their cars. But company officials have pointed to recent contracts with many of the park's labor groups that raised wages to $15 or more per hour, and other new benefits including programs to pay employees' college tuition and assist with child care.
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Alicia Robinson | Reporter
Alicia Robinson covers cities and local government for the Orange County Register. She has also reported at the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, the Daily Pilot in Costa Mesa, and at small daily and weekly papers in the midwest, before she became an honorary Californian based on hours spent in traffic. Besides government and policy, she's interested in animals both wild and domestic, people who try to make the world better, and how things work.
arobinson@scng.com
Follow Alicia Robinson	@ARobWriter
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