ANAHEIM, Calif. — Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., started his tour of southern California Saturday campaigning with Disney workers fighting for $15 an hour.
Sanders joined a range of Disney workers at a megachurch in Anaheim, where employees talked about going hungry, living in cars, and being unable to afford rent.
The former presidential candidate tore into Disney for not paying its workers a living wage while still benefiting from local tax breaks and those newly implemented by the GOP tax plan.
“We are talking about a company that has received huge tax breaks from taxpayers here in Anaheim [and] received over billion in tax breaks from Trump’s tax giveaway to the wealthy,” said Sanders to raucous cheers from the crowd.
One worker shouted “fuck Donald Trump” and another chimed in “shame on him.”
As vendors sold “Feel the Bern 2020” shirts and pins — with a cutout of Sanders’ hair and glasses above the words “hindsight 2020” — outside the church, Sanders railed on millionaires and billionaires inside.
“If a corporation like Disney has enough money to pay its CEO over $400 million in a four year period, it damn well has enough money to pay its workers at least 15 bucks an hour,” Sanders said.
Glynndana Shevlin, 58, a food and beverage worker at Disneyland and a member of the Unite Here Local 11 has worked at the park for 30 years. Her wages have increased $2 in the last 10 years.
“I go hungry most days on one meal a day,” Shevlin said, sitting next to Sanders on stage.
“I work in the most beautiful room in the Adventure Tower at the Disneyland hotel … panoramic view of Disney and feed these guests the most amazing gourmet food you’ve ever seen that at the end of day gets thrown in recycle bin,” Shevlin continued. “If I eat that food or even try it, they call it separated from the company like we’re family — you’re going to be shunned. They freakin’ fire us if we eat one little crumb.”
Sanders questioned the “moral defense” of a company that makes some $9 billion in profits and allows a worker like Shevlin to go hungry.
“Let me break the news to people watching, ducks don’t talk, mice really don’t talk. That’s fantasy — this is reality,” said Sanders. “And reality is that someone who has worked for an enormously successful and profitable corporation for 30 years should not be going hungry.”
Speaking to a nearly crowded church auditorium, Sanders made no mention of the June 5 primary next week. But Sanders, a potential 2020 presidential contender, brought the town hall back to Trump, who he said is “trying to divide us up.”
“We’re going to win here in Anaheim, we’re going to win all over the country.” Sanders said of the national labor movement.
Disney workers are currently embroiled in contract negotiations with the company, who has offered to raise workers’ pay to $15 an hour immediately — one year before the state deadline. But unions argue the increase is in exchange for cutting other benefits, and refusing improvements to healthcare. Unions are also pushing to get a measure on the November ballot in Anaheim that would require a raise to $15 an hour next year and $18 by 2022.
In a statement issued after Sanders’ appearance, Suzi Brown, the vice president for Disneyland Resort Communications, said the company is “negotiating one of the largest union contracts.”
Disneyland Resort is offering to increase starting wages 36 percent over three years and launch an education program to help workers pursue degrees.
“While Mr. Sanders continues to criticize Disney to keep himself in the headlines, we continue to support our cast members through investments in wages and education,” Brown said.
