Walt Disney Co. continues to face fallout from its scuttled plans to move 2,000 California employees to a proposed Florida campus — a controversial decision the company reversed last year following the return of Chief Executive Bob Iger.
In 2021, then-CEO Bob Chapek and parks and experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaroannounced plans to relocate employees supporting Disney theme parks and resorts — including the celebrated Imagineers — to a planned $1-billion office park in the Lake Nona area of Orlando, Fla. The move was designed for Disney to take advantage of Florida tax credits, but the cross-country shift was deeply unpopular among employees who were asked to uproot their lives in Southern California.
Now some Disney employees are suing the company over the canceled relocation.
According to a lawsuit filed Tuesday against Disney in Los Angeles County Superior Court, numerous workers heeded the company’s calls, dutifully sold their homes in the Los Angeles area and moved to Central Florida.
This has become a common strategy for large businesses to cull their employees - “return to office”, relocating HQ; it’s done in hopes most of those employees opt to quit so the business doesn’t have to fire them / give them a severance or whatever.
Sounds like in this case the bluff was called.
This is a little different than “return to office”, these employees were already working at Disneyland and were told “No, no, we need you for an expansion at DisneyWORLD… Get up and go!”
Then after they went it was “jk, just foolin’. U mad bro?”
It’s crazy when you think about it. They picked up their lives, sold their homes in southern california, and moved to fucking central florida of all places. It’s such a massive, massive downgrade in every conceivable category to move from socal to central florida. Then to have the company that mandated this (probably under threat of termination) pull a bait-and-switch once the employees and their families had moved, I’d be lawyering up and suing too. I’d sue them to make me whole – put me back in the same neighborhood I left, in a same or better house (with the same or better loan amount and terms), and offset any losses (with interest) related to moving, my spouse’s loss of job and income, provide equivalent income and job placement for my spouse until they find an equal or better job, and guarantee my employment at current job and comp for the next 10 years (with a sparkling golden parachute if they terminate me earlier).