Legal Aid for Disneyland Employees Suffering Discrimination

It is with disappointment that ultimately I am making this campaign on behalf of many being impacted at the Disney company right now. It is clear with document leaks and the interviews recently that there is simply racial discrimination happening within the company, be it with illegal hiring quotas or treatment of ethnicities within the company itself. It is clear that it is illegal, and it is clear that it has been happening for some time.

The parks are seeing satisfaction at all time lows, and complaints skyrocketing. The public is noticing. Entertainment divisions are seeing record lows on shows. Interviews are being released daily speaking to the belief that even the CEO Bog Iger is involved deliberately in breach of fiduciary responsibilities. To that end, I am opening this gofundme with the intent to seek legal protections for Disneyland parks employees to ensure that no racial discrimination is occurring, and the company begin to comply with the standards of law that have been present for years. It will go toward securing legal representation to assess potential class actions going forward for discriminatory practices. No one should be being discriminated against for any ethnicity, gender, religious, or other protected class. Any funds risen will be controlled by myself and placed toward creating a legal fund specifically for dealing with aiding cast with allegations that will most likely be following for years given such blatant discrimination that has come to light. The first step should the amount be raised would be setting a retainer for legal team for impacted employees, including myself, and moving from there.

This is not the company that Walt ultimately envisioned, and the racial discrimination and agendas are seemingly getting worse and worse with each report released and it needs to stop. For many cast they simply want to preserve the ideals of the company, to maintain their employment, and to maintain the core values and quality for visiting families that are now being jeopardized. For others, they are struggling to live paycheck to paycheck already. One thing is ultimately clear: Disney needs to do better.

For some history about myself, my name is Rafael Rendon and I am currently a 13 year employee of the parks as an hourly cast member. I have been in multiple hourly departments and am seeing a lot of these things first hand. I am also currently a union shop steward, though not specifically a union employee, for hourly employees at the Anaheim Disney worksites as well as a former union executive board member formerly elected by the employees of the worksite. I have been in multiple arbitrations with the company along with union staff, and even won a million dollar arbitration regarding workers rights and workload division previously for the Anaheim parks during the pandemic. I am well familiar with their legal tactics firsthand. And yes, I have also been subject to being targeted and retaliated against by the company and know first hand both their tactics, and how it ultimately feels when it happens. I have even been in meetings with company management where Walt's legacy of treating cast with respect was brought up, and their response to Walt's legacy was they simply did not care.

At the end of the day, I am doing this because I believe that this company has placed itself on a deliberate path where it is destroying itself and its core values, breaching their fiduciary responsibilities which will ultimately most likely lead to further lawsuits, and jeopardizing both the long term survival of the company and the jobs of the employees through blatant and public discriminatory practices that are coming to light which will most likely also lead to lawsuits beyond. Seeing interviews from O'keefe as well as leaked documents regarding racial hiring quotas and discriminatory practices, as well as management executive bonuses and funding tied to discriminatory practices, was simply the last straw in a long road that has been ongoing. Disney ultimately need to stop pretending they care about their employees using smoke and mirror tactics in public relations campaigns while masking discriminatory practices and truly need to do better. The public is no longer buying what Disney is selling like they used to, both figuratively and literally.