Disney Asking Employees To Help Fund Copyright Lobbying (arstechnica.com)

NormalVisual writes: Disney is now asking its employees to chip in to promote the company's copyright agenda via the company's political action committee, DisneyPAC. CEO Bob Iger has sent a letter to the company's employees lauding the company's success with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement and the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the video service Aereo -- an Internet service claiming the right to retransmit [Disney's] broadcast signals without paying copyright or retransmission consent fees. Iger also expresses the company's hope that DisneyPAC will be able to influence Congress in regards to lowering corporate tax rates. Not surprisingly, the company refuses to comment on the initiative.

Comments

why not just get the foreign workers to pay for it

[Anonymous Coward]

get the new foreign workers to pay for it all as part of their contracts.

why on earth would employees want to fund this? it's a company issue, not an employee issue

Re:Isn't that illegal?

[srmalloy]

From TFA:

US corporations are allowed to solicit political contributions as long as donations aren't coerced. The relevant law bars any "threat of a detrimental job action, the threat of any other financial reprisal, or the threat of force" when asking for donations.

Also from TFA, the letter explicitly states "Your contribution is important to all of us, but I want to emphasize that all contributions are voluntary and have no impact on your job status, performance review, compensation, or employment." and "Any amount given or the decision not to give will not advantage or disadvantage you." How much of that is going to be reflected in practice -- Disney using other 'justifications' for giving a worker crappier shifts, keep them from receiving performance awards, etc. -- to create a de facto but not de jure requirement to contribute has yet to be seen

Not a surprising request but unreasonable

[mykepredko]

While a corporation should and needs to protect it's assets and petition sitting governments on various, I think it's a) inappropriate to monetarily support candidates and b) coerce employees to support and contribute to the cause. In the '80s, when I was working for IBM, they sent a letter to all (Canadian, at least) employees telling them to support NAFTA which I (and many of my coworkers) thought was inappropriate but the company felt that it was in its best interests to do this.

The situation is even more despicable when it comes to Disney, who clearly don't seem to care about their employees and really not good corporate citizens. There maybe honour & prestige working for Disney but if there is an option to reduce their costs, they will clearly take it, current employees be damned.