From a pure cut-throat capitalist perspective, this seems like a stupid move. Teams like this are not easy to replace, and Disney has plenty of money.
“I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”
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Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”
#12I'm from a country with public health care, so this comes as an interesting shock - would employees immediately lose health benefits if made redundant / fired etc? Seems to incentivize getting rid of people when they need healthcare the most (eg "I have cancer" -> "Look, we're going to have to let you go, your performance the past few months hasn't been up to scratch"). I assume there'd be a bunch of health related a…
So yeah people totally lose their health care when they lose their job. Typically it runs through the month and then you’re on your own. You can by law keep buying the same plan at full price (employers typically pay between 50-80 and sometimes up to 100% of the premium). However, when you get sick that rate doesn’t go up, so there’s no incentive from your employers standpoint to fire you when sick. Because of the “l…
> there’s no incentive from your employers standpoint to fire you when sick
except that if you get a severe illness and can't come to work, they can fire you for that
Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”
#13I'm from a country with public health care, so this comes as an interesting shock - would employees immediately lose health benefits if made redundant / fired etc? Seems to incentivize getting rid of people when they need healthcare the most (eg "I have cancer" -> "Look, we're going to have to let you go, your performance the past few months hasn't been up to scratch"). I assume there'd be a bunch of health related a…
We have a law called COBRA that lets you continue your employers coverage for up to 18 months I think it is. You have to pay the entire premium including the portion your employer paid so the price tag is usually a shock.
Think around $2000 a month for a family of 4 or $600 for an individual.
Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”
#14I'm from a country with public health care, so this comes as an interesting shock - would employees immediately lose health benefits if made redundant / fired etc? Seems to incentivize getting rid of people when they need healthcare the most (eg "I have cancer" -> "Look, we're going to have to let you go, your performance the past few months hasn't been up to scratch"). I assume there'd be a bunch of health related a…
We have a law called COBRA that lets you continue your employers coverage for up to 18 months I think it is. You have to pay the entire premium including the portion your employer paid so the price tag is usually a shock.
Monthly cost for a married couple with children can easily be over $2000 a month.
Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”
#15From a pure cut-throat capitalist perspective, this seems like a stupid move. Teams like this are not easy to replace, and Disney has plenty of money.
Imagineering is incredibly competitive, and furlough allows employees to pull unemployment benefits temporarily. My guess would be that if Disney can bring them back and get them to work within 2 months, they'll lose very few of the employees.
(this really isn't far from how Denmark is handling the crisis nationally -- freeze employment, have the government pay salaries, and do their best to have companies pick back up where they left off w/ the same workforce).
Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”
#16I'm from a country with public health care, so this comes as an interesting shock - would employees immediately lose health benefits if made redundant / fired etc? Seems to incentivize getting rid of people when they need healthcare the most (eg "I have cancer" -> "Look, we're going to have to let you go, your performance the past few months hasn't been up to scratch"). I assume there'd be a bunch of health related a…
A. If you are a military retiree or military dependent (spouse or child), medical coverage is free and works differently from the rest of the system. This may be ten percent or more of the population, as a hand wavy wild guess. (If that sounds high, a foreign friend used to tell me Americans are rabidly militaristic nutcases with an insanely high percentage of people here who have spent time in the military.)
B. You can also be covered under your spouse's work plan. So losing your job doesn't necessarily cut you out completely.
C. A few years ago, we changed the law to make it possible to remain covered by your parents' healthcare up to age 26, even if you are married.
D. If you are old enough, there's Medicare. If you are poor enough, there's Medicaid.
If none of those situations apply, yup, it sucks big time. The high cost of COBRA makes that option an ugly joke for a lot of unemployed people who simply can't afford it.
The US should join the rest of the developed world and provide universal coverage.
Edit: For context, my father, ex husband, father-in-law and assorted other relatives were career military. I'm not anti military. I'm just trying to say "That's totes a good faith wild guess!"
Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”
#17From a pure cut-throat capitalist perspective, this seems like a stupid move. Teams like this are not easy to replace, and Disney has plenty of money.
Is this related to the thing where the bill they passed is paying out more as unemployment than people would be making if they kept their jobs?
It's possible they know exactly what they're doing, are doing everybody a favor, and will just hire them again when everything opens back up.
Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
So yeah people totally lose their health care when they lose their job. Typically it runs through the month and then you’re on your own. You can by law keep buying the same plan at full price (employers typically pay between 50-80 and sometimes up to 100% of the premium). However, when you get sick that rate doesn’t go up, so there’s no incentive from your employers standpoint to fire you when sick. Because of the “l…
> there’s no incentive from your employers standpoint to fire you when sick except that if you get a severe illness and can't come to work, they can fire you for that
In California you can get 52 weeks of short term disability if you are not able to work due to illness.
Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”
#19I'm from a country with public health care, so this comes as an interesting shock - would employees immediately lose health benefits if made redundant / fired etc? Seems to incentivize getting rid of people when they need healthcare the most (eg "I have cancer" -> "Look, we're going to have to let you go, your performance the past few months hasn't been up to scratch"). I assume there'd be a bunch of health related a…
So yeah people totally lose their health care when they lose their job. Typically it runs through the month and then you’re on your own. You can by law keep buying the same plan at full price (employers typically pay between 50-80 and sometimes up to 100% of the premium). However, when you get sick that rate doesn’t go up, so there’s no incentive from your employers standpoint to fire you when sick. Because of the “l…
Large employers typically self-insure, including a large majority of companies with over 500 employees [1]. You might see, say, Blue Cross on your card, but they’re just administering - the actual payments to doctors, etc. are in fact coming from your company. Sometimes the company will still show a percentage of “premium” that they are covering; it’s not a real premium in that case, just a percentage of the average care covered per employee.
This means there could be a strictly financial incentive to dismiss a sick employee. This is of course entirely illegal if that were the purpose. [1] https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pa...
Re: “I, along with almost all of Disney Imagineering, am furloughed without pay”
#20From a pure cut-throat capitalist perspective, this seems like a stupid move. Teams like this are not easy to replace, and Disney has plenty of money.
They're furloughed, not laid off. I doubt they'll lose anyone who wasn't intending to leave.
I get that John is down, and I definitely don't have whatever insight led him to say "even if I'm lucky enough to return someday, other people won't be". From my understanding though, a huge portion of corporate around the stores and parks was furloughed because there's not much for them to do at home. Their healthcare is covered and kindness aside it doesn't make much sense for Disney to bleed money. But this wasn't a covert layoff — when things get back to speed Disney wants people back.
Edit: And furloughing the employees allows them to claim unemployment, so that the US government can absorb the impact rather than Disney. Not pretty, but rational in a time of stimulus.