Class warfare and income redistribution are two of the key elements in the Bernie Sanders platform and he is now taking aim at the Avengers, more specifically, the profits Disney will earn from the blockbuster success of Avengers: Endgame. Video at the bottom announces the $1.2 billion opening weekend of the film.
“What would be truly heroic is if Disney used its profits from Avengers to pay all of its workers a middle class wage, instead of paying its CEO Bob Iger $65.6 million — over 1,400 times as much as the average worker at Disney makes,” said Sanders in an income inequality-themed tweet Monday.
Sanders has been a frequent critic of the corporation’s management practices, praising unionized Walt Disney World Resort workers in August after they secured a $15 minimum wage in negotiations with the company.
In a discussion and viral Twitter thread earlier this month, Roy Disney’s granddaughter Abigail Disney joined the attack, stating that Iger’s compensation “is insane” and called on the company to shift “some of the profits” to rank-and-file employees.
“There’s a point at which there’s just too much going around the top of the system into this class of people who — I’m sorry this is radical — have too much money,” she said.
“Walt Disney Co. shares hit record levels on Monday, after the company’s ‘Avengers: Endgame’ film shattered box-office records,” Bloomberg reported Monday. “The success of the film prompted analysts to expect a much larger contribution from the studio division to the company’s overall profit, and it is also seen as a positive sign as the Dow component prepares to launch its Disney+ streaming service.”
JPMorgan’s Alexia Quadrani says they’ve raised the full-year earnings estimate for Disney, “largely on better expected performance at the Studio segment,” and thus they’ve increased their price targets significantly.
Sanders doesn’t sound interested in shareholders and their earnings, only the “underpaid” workers, now earning $15 per hour.
When the rank and file get the education and experience needed to do his job, then they deserve his pay, otherwise be happy with what Disney is paying you in the first place.