Since allies of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took over Walt Disney World’s government earlier this year, morale has deteriorated, the governing district has been politicized and cronyism permeates the organization.
Morale and trust within the Walt Disney World government has deteriorated since allies of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took it over earlier this year, according to many employees who have departed in recent months saying the governing district has been politicized and cronyism now permeates the organization.
More than 40 out of about 370 employees have left the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District since it was taken over in February, raising concerns that decades of institutional knowledge is departing with them, along with a reputation for a well-run government.
“When I first joined the District, I found an organization that strived to be the very best at serving our community, sought the very best employees and valued those employees above all else,” a former facilities manager with three years of experience said in an employee exit survey last week. “I find myself leaving a completely different District. A District that prioritizes politics above all else and will gladly sacrifice its employees, its community and its work if there’s an opportunity to score political points.”
Picking Disney as your hill to die on is so stupid. Especially when Disney is one of Florida's big money makers. Like, I don't think the government should be beholden to corporations obviously, but actively antagonizing one just cause you hate gay people is a dumb move all around. Not to mention all of Disney's "support" for the lgbt community isn't exactly...sincere.
Yeah, this is kinda where I sit. Disney isn't our friend, not by a long shot. I'll take the "support" they've shown over what we got in the early 90s, where being gay meant you were either the laughingstock of a sitcom or movie, or a sex-crazed maniac who's probably also a pedophile.
Which makes "Go Woke, Go Broke" that much more laughable. If "going woke" was so unprofitable, no major corporation would be "woke." If being "anti-woke" was profitable, Target would stock anti-Trans clothing, Disney would have movies where the only LGBTQ characters are the villains, and all movies would only feature straight, white, Christian men as the leads perhaps with a "dumb but sexy blonde" love interest.
I find it so funny and sad that Republicans call this "virtue signaling" as if it's a new thing and that companies haven't been pandering to the public to increase sales since they've existed.
And conservatives have always had a problem with it when it supports progressive ideals.
As I see it, this whole debacle is as much proof as I or anyone should need that DeSantis is unfit to be president.
When the state's largest employer, one who had supported him in the past on many issues, dared oppose him on one single issue that had taken the national stage (where they could do nothing other than oppose or be seen as discriminatory), he decided to punish them. Not in any way that was even a little bit effective, but in a punitive and immature and ineffective way that has replaced an effective good government agency with a politicized useless committee.
His actions say to me that he is neither a good representative of Florida's people, nor a wise leader, nor even an effective politician. He is a child who had a temper tantrum when he didn't get his way, so he tried to smash his favorite toy and didn't even break it.
We can do better. We have to do better than that, for the good of the nation.
Unlucky. I think Biden is a better candidate than either of them, but I think the American people deserve to have two decent choices to pick from.
I have no particular love for the DNC either or many of the Democratic candidates we've seen, but at least they manage to more often than not put forward someone who would at least make a semi-functional administrator who tries to execute some sort of plan.
And Disney didn't even strongly oppose DeSantis. It was a wishy-washy sort of opposition and DeSantis responded to it with a "I'm going to destroy Disney!"
Yeah, right. People can have their quarrels with how Disney operates, but you can't deny that Disney is a powerhouse. You do NOT want to get on their legal team's bad side unless your case is VERY good.
Exactly. They are a huge company, they win when they fight, and they are also his state's biggest employer. Why pick a fight with them at all? It's stupid. There was no reason for it.
Hell, if DeSantis had two brain cells to rub together, he'd have met privately with Disney and said this is important to me, so oppose it publicly all you want just don't put any serious action into it, and we can pretend to fight but still be friends. That's a win-win, Disney gets the credit for being woke, he gets the credit for being anti-gay, they each play their roles. I'm pretty sure Disney would have gone for that.
Shady as fuck of course, but far more effective for everybody than the childish tantrum he went off with.
Whoever sits in the oval office should be clever enough to see possibilities like that, not emotional to have a tantrum when he doesn't get his way.
It's the same story over and over. Any government that prioritizes loyalty over competency will find themselves ruling over a disaster. It doesn't even really matter what the pet ideas are.
It is just better for everyone to hire and support the people who are most capable even if you disagree with them on every single issue.
Without a doubt. But I think a lot of the extreme social conservatives, both politician and populace, are like a dog chasing a truck- they wouldn't know what to do with it if they actually got what they are going after. Many of those positions are just based on a general sense of fear and dissatisfaction, the religious element is happy to play into that and a lot of conservative politicians are happy to play into both to get votes.
It's a shitty strategy and it's bad for the country and making it mainstream is one of the worst things Karl Rove did to this country. It's like McCain legitimizing Sarah Palin, only worse.
It really isn't. Disney are a big corporation, and corpos gonna corpo, but Disney does at least pull its weight in some ways that most modern politicians seem incapable of. Meanwhile, the whole region, perhaps even the whole state, is circling the drain taking innocent people with them.
It's not like Disney is any sort of a malicious actor in this.
these are the sorts of things they’ve done with the control they’ve had over disney world. they haven’t “put employees above all else” like the person in the article said they did.
Would be an interesting hell if Disney packs up and leaves the state. Conservatives take over the property and business and rebrand it some kind of conservative Christian family theme park lol.
Have you ever been to Disney World? I've been there quite a few times. Packing up and leaving wouldn't be easy at all.
First of all, Disney World is huge. It's 43 square miles or over 27,500 acres. Disney would need to find an equivalent sized area in a state that wouldn't threaten to turn "MAGA Red" and that would have decent weather year round (i.e. no massive snow storms). It would also need to have a major airport nearby.
Next, Disney would need to rebuild all the infrastructure: roads, bridges, drainage systems, etc. They would need to rebuild all of the parks which would be a monumental effort itself. There are tunnels in Magic Kingdom that are used for employees. These would need to be rebuilt. Restaurants, hotels, and shops would need to be built. Employees would need to be relocated (or new employees hired). Animals would need to be transported from Animal Kingdom to the new park.
And while all this was going on, Disney World would need to keep operating. Building a New Disney World could easily take a decade even if everything went smoothly. Disney couldn't afford to just shut down Disney World for 10 years.
It would cost Disney a lot less money to just beef up their already impressive legal team and donate to politicians likely to take a friendlier stance towards Disney. Disney could likely fund every Democratic politician in Florida from dog catcher to governor and still spend less than if they rebuilt Disney World.
(This isn't to say that I'm a fan of companies buying favorable politicians. Just that it makes more financial sense for Disney to do this rather than rebuild.)
Acurate assessment. As much as I would like to see Disney scorched earth Florida, its not happening in the near future.
The other medium-term solution I could see is to begin winding down operations in Florida and redirecting resources to beefing up the other existing parks. Basically cut back all spending in Florida until the park park is barely breaking even. Let it sputter out slowly while expanding other properties.
That said, you're probably right that The Mouse really needs to drop some cash in Florida and drastically alter the political landscape.
There are tunnels in Magic Kingdom that are used for employees. These would need to be rebuilt.
Fun fact: it's not that they dug tunnels (the water table in Florida is too high for that); it's that they raised the ground elevation of the entire park to above the top of corridors created at the original ground level.
I can already see someone asking for contributions for a Christian theme park and get millions in donations only to later declare bankruptcy due to running out of funds.
This is what happens when you can't help but use the apparatus of the state for your petty business squabbles. Florida is becoming unlivable, and this is where the state government's priorities lie.
Needs more mentions of "woke," "cancel culture," and "kids being forced into sex change operations by liberals after they give birth and have post-birth abortions." Maybe a light sprinkling of CRT for Outrage Nostalgia.
More than 40 out of about 370 employees have left the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District since it was taken over in February, raising concerns that decades of institutional knowledge is departing with them, along with a reputation for a well-run government.
The Republican governor and GOP-dominated Florida Legislature took control of the district in retaliation after Disney publicly opposed a state law banning classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades.
It previously was named the Reedy Creek Improvement District when it was established in 1967 to provide municipal services like road repairs, waste collection and firefighting on the 25,000 acres (10,117 hectares) that make up Disney’s theme park resort in central Florida.
The new board members, though, have been accusing the previous administration of cronyism while at the same time hiring politically-connected associates to positions in the district or awarding them contracts, the former facilities manager said in his exit interview last week.
Last month, the district authorized a $242,500 no-bid contract to update its emergency-calls network with a company whose chief executive had served with Gilzean on the Florida Commission on Ethics, where both were DeSantis appointees.
Disney has sued DeSantis and the members of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board in federal court in Tallahassee over the takeover, claiming its free speech rights were violated.
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