Disney reduces education benefit for cast members

We can't know how much people took advantage of the program before, but I did hear an anecdote here in FL about someone who got crushed with the taxes that came after the IRS tuition cap. That seems like it would be an obvious thing to change in the tax code. The amount should be higher.

Of all the ways to manage costs, this doesn't sound like it aligns with the company's values.

Sure it does, maximize shareholder returns. ✅

It's still a pretty great benefit.

If they had no cap then it was a killer benefit. Many companies use that $5250 number, and it isn’t enough to cover an actual year of schooling.

That's a little less than half of the national annual in state average. I wouldn't have sneezed at that when I was in school. Borrowing that much a year is probably going to cost you $50k.

The article mentions the recent union agreement. I wonder if they were so laser focused on wages that they didn't think to try and protect this benefit.

If you're working full-time, do you have time for anything more than part-time school? Honest question. I found 8 hours of work a week challenging in college.

Depends on the person, but if you spend every night and all of your off days on school than yeah, completely possible for full time school

$5200 is still more than zero. It's practically free money. I wouldn't complain of I were getting this benefit.

You are downright un-American with that kind of attitude Traivs!

Boy, on the list of reactions I was expecting, defending this as a good decision was not one of them.

I think I’ve grown a sour taste in my mouth towards a lot of companies over the past few years. I work for a struggling airline that’s often the butt of a lot of jokes, and despite repeated quarterly losses, the worst we’ve seen are a handful of furloughs. Meanwhile, these large companies repeatedly take it out on their workforce when their obscene profits just aren’t quite where they want them to be.

I'm not defending it as a good decision as much as I'm just not calling it a catastrophe. If they were as hellbent on taking it out on the workforce as you allege, they would have taken it away completely.

I don't think Disney is taking anything out on anyone. They've made huge concessions to the unions for wages and benefits, and this is still free money that frankly makes a person more marketable to work anywhere else. As far as hourly McJobs go, these are pretty solid.

It makes them more marketable, but isn’t there a clause that requires them to work there for a certain amount of time to avoid having to repay the grant? That’s how I’ve usually seen things.

I doubt that would be a provision for an hourly entry level job.

sirloindude:

I work for a struggling airline that’s often the butt of a lot of jokes, and despite repeated quarterly losses, the worst we’ve seen are a handful of furloughs. Meanwhile, these large companies repeatedly take it out on their workforce when their obscene profits just aren’t quite where they want them to be.

Hellboy: If they were as hellbent on taking it out on the workforce as you allege, they would have taken it away completely.

And that right there shows why union contracts and benefits are necessary. I work for the same company, and while not furloughed myself, I'm in one of the employee groups that has furloughs. My QOL and pay has taken a hit. While I'm not blindly cheerleading my union, I am immensely grateful that it exists. Without it, my entire profession (every airline, not just the crappy yellow ones) wouldn't have a quarter of what we have these days.

While not employed by an airline I do have a close friend who is a flight attendant for American Airlines and have been following their recent contract negotiations pretty closely over the past couple of years. They basically went 5 years without a raise, or any benefit increases since their last contract expired. That's beyond ridiculous...and it's all driven by corporate greed.

To put it bluntly, before their contract finally got ratified this past week (that almost resulted in a strike) it is almost criminal what the airline was paying and how they were treating their flight attendant work force.

I'm not arguing that flight attendants should be at the top of the pay scale but come on...the airline before this last quarter was turning in record profits.

I'm very conservative in my fiscal and social views. But recently I'm converting over to the "corporate greed" bandwagon and how many companies since Covid are making record profits and very little of this is trickled down to their employees.

This might seem radical, and never going to happen, but I'd love to see legislation requiring companies who make over a certain threshold of profitability to allocate a certain amount to its employees.

And before you say that all flight attendants do is serve peanuts and drinks...do a little research. The amount of training and knowledge that they are required to have, and the BS they have to deal in the cabin on a daily basis is impressive when you look at what their actual job requires.

Hanging n' Banging:

how many companies since Covid are making record profits and very little of this is trickled down to their employees.

Ah, trickle down economics, Reagan's biggest scam ever on this nation.

Hanging n' Banging:
This might seem radical, and never going to happen, but I'd love to see legislation requiring companies who make over a certain threshold of profitability to allocate a certain amount to its employees.

One effective way of attempting to make this happen is to tax the hell out of companies, this will incentivize them to send the retained earnings back into the world in some fashion, whether it be increased wages, upgrades to whatever for the business, etc. Stock buybacks and holding those record profits, or giving them away to shareholders should be disincentivized in every way possible.

Hanging n' Banging:
and it's all driven by corporate greed.

Same reason you are paying x amount more for groceries, or basically anything else, and also the driving force behind en****tification. If they cannot keep increasing customer count, then they will cheapen the product as much as possible to keep that profit line increasing.

Hanging n' Banging:
And before you say that all flight attendants do is serve peanuts and drinks...do a little research. The amount of training and knowledge that they are required to have, and the BS they have to deal in the cabin on a daily basis is impressive when you look at what their actual job requires.

Workers create value, shareholders do not create value. Additionally, rarely does C-Suite create value.

I wouldn't say that it's all corporate greed. In the case of record-profit airlines, sure, I guess. Sometimes though margins are so thin and competition so fierce that the business is at risk when it has to spend more on labor, cost of materials, marketing, etc. The auto industry went through a phase like this, and it was certainly a factor in those companies needing to be bailed out. A guy who mounts bumpers all day at $40 an hour (anecdote, but it did happen) doesn't entirely make sense.

Don't get me wrong, I'm generally pro-union, but I don't think that it's useful to harp on "greed." Companies aren't people, they don't have feelings, so they can't really be greedy. They can be risk averse, investor focused, or just in a crappy low-margin business, but that's not the same as greed.