The Walt Disney Company and several affiliates (collectively, “Disney”) have agreed to pay $43.25M to settle a class action that alleged Disney paid female workers less than male workers for substantially similar jobs. Specifically, the lawsuit alleged that for almost a decade, Disney systemically paid female employees less than their male counterparts, even when the female had more experience, partly because Disney’s compensation policy based starting salaries on prior pay. The lawsuit further alleged that prior pay historically contains gender-based disparities, and Disney’s policy perpetuated this disparity.

The settlement is for a class of female employees – estimated to be more than 14,000 – employed by a Disney company in California who worked in certain salaried, full-time, non-union jobs between April 1, 2015 and December 28, 2024.

In addition to the payment, as part of the settlement, Disney will: (1) hire an industrial and organizational psychologist to provide training on benchmarking jobs and organizing jobs within Disney’s job architecture, and (2) retain an outside labor economist for three years to analyze the annual base pay of full-time, non-union employees in California to determine whether statistically significant pay differences exist.

What would a respectful workplace have done?

Many states and cities prohibit employers from asking candidates about their salary history. Why? Because data shows that gender discrimination still exists in pay, and basing a new employee’s salary on past salary perpetuates that discrimination and pay disparity. Even if not illegal, respectful employers don’t ask for a candidate’s past compensation. There’s no need to know. As an employer, you’ve determined the pay band for your positions. Respectful employers look at things like a candidate’s skills, experience, and other valuable attributes to determine what compensation, within the established pay band, to offer the candidate. Respectful workplaces base their starting salaries on the value they see in their candidates, not on how the candidates’ past employers valued them.

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Information here is correct at the time it is posted. Case decisions cited here may be reversed. Please do not rely on this information without consulting an attorney first.