Disney cast members could see their pay increased to nearly $20 an hour following a California appellate court ruling this week that found the resort illegally skirted a 2018 voter-approved living wage measure.
Measure L required businesses that receive subsidies from Anaheim to raise wages to at least $15 an hour in 2019, with $1 annual increases through 2022 and cost-of-living hikes after that.
Cast members sued in 2019, arguing the measure applied to Disney, but the company had failed to follow it.
Then in October 2021, Orange County Superior Court Judge William D. Claster said that while Disney benefited from 1996 agreements with Anaheim that use hotel taxes to pay debt on a parking structure for Disneyland visitors, those agreements don’t constitute a tax rebate or a subsidy as described in the ballot measure.
On Thursday, July 13, a three-judge panel for California’s Fourth Appellate District disagreed with that interpretation.
Under an agreement tied to the parking structure deal, Disney agreed that if there was any year in which the city’s incremental tax revenues failed to meet its bond obligations, Disney would make up the shortfall. Additionally, the parties agreed Disney would be reimbursed for its shortfall payments in those years when the city’s incremental tax revenues rebounded.
“Consequently, Disney receives a city subsidy within the meaning of the living wage ordinance and it is therefore obligated to pay its employees the designated minimum wages,” the appellate panel ruled. “Thus, we reverse the trial court’s order granting Disney and (food service contractor) Sodexo’s motion for summary judgment.”
Mike Lyster, a spokesperson for the city of Anaheim, said Friday the city “respectfully” questions the appellate court’s interpretation, and needs time to analyze the decision.
A Disney spokesperson declined Friday to say whether the company will appeal the decision, adding it is “reviewing the opinion and…
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