It seems like the only option is to vote with our dollars. I just refuse to go there anymore. And we used to go frequently. Plenty of other stuff to do.
^ I blame both WDW and the university for that. A friend’s D did one of those “internships” while attending Drexel. Friend said same as your comment, @Singersmom07, that they got treated as indentured servants who learned more about pointing correctly than anything to do with any education.
I cannot fathom why the university went along with this unless Disney makes a big contribution. The students sure didn’t get any benefit.
I believe in boycotts. Telling a company, “I’m not going to patronize you because I don’t believe your values and actions are good for our society” is a powerful form of self-expression in a capitalist society. And plenty companies found out the hard way, that if they want to remain in consumers’ good graces, they have to listen to their consumers.
Target was one. Supporting anti-gay politicians back in the day proved to be very, very costly when word spread and consumers started avoiding their stores. And guess what? Their politics changed. “All of the sudden.”
Yes, after reading about how people have been fired and had to train their new workers at a fraction of their wages, I am no longer interested in Disney. We did have a whirlwind visit through Epcot because we were in Tampa and Orlando seemed so close, but I am definitely no longer feeling the “magic.” My kids aren’t Disney fans but would go to Disneyland on their birthdays because admission was free. They’ve never really been Disney fans, so it has never been high on our list. Now, even less so.
S has a STEM job that requires security clearances and citizenship, so I doubt it will be outsourced. He’s pretty happy with it, but it doesn’t pay as much as some others but supposedly has a bit more security.
there are other employers… anyone is free to get another job. 
remember—it’s not only the Parks. It’s Star Wars, ESPN and ABC television just to name a few… It’s easy to “boycott” when it’s something that you don’t plan on going to since it’s too expensive.
"there are other employers… anyone is free to get another job’
But not everyone is free to abuse the H1-B visa in this fashion…Much of their success depends on the American public feeling warm and fuzzy about all things Disney. When you are a high profile media company that calls itself the happiest place on earth and you not only scam the visa system but you treat your empolyees in this brutal arbitrary fashion—you do so at your own peril
ESPN is easy for those of us non-sports-lovers to boycott anyway. Star Wars–we liked well enough to view once but aren’t going to buy much of the merchandising. We rarely watch any TV and now that we’ve lost the remote for the TV will likely watch even less. 
Disney is over-priced to me, but we could easily afford it IF we were at all interested and have gone quite a few times while our kids were growing up. H has never enjoyed amusement parks and I am less and less interested in being around crowds as I get older, so we are both fine with avoiding pretty much all amusement parks. I am especially disappointed that they don’t value their workers and reading the various exposes.
I hear you @HImom . You couldnt pay me to go to Disneyland…but really just because I hate being there. Standing in line in not my forte. Neither are overblown carnival rides. I just wanted to give their film division a dig as well.
The media hoopla about Zappos’ new “startup” culture… talk about misplaced outrage.
The H1-B visa system was designed to lure Soviet bloc rocket scientists or equivalents thereof into the US, the folks with some unique skill set and knowledge in their fields. Now, it is being used to bring tech equivalent of fruit pickers and then move both the fruit production and picking abroad (Except actual fruit pickers do not directly displace US workers… )
It was 250 workers out of 74,000. I am sure you could drum up similar actions by most of the Fortune 500. I am a Disney fan–the parks, the sports, Star Wars–all of it. They do a fantastic job. The stock has been great as well. I hope to hit up the park later this year.
One of our seasonal employees did a semester there when she was at the local state college. She had a lot of fun , but when she decided to move down there to take a job with her degree in film studies , she was less than thrilled to work at a hot dog stand for minimum wage…dreams crushed and she didn’t last 6 months down there
“I cannot fathom why the university went along with this unless Disney makes a big contribution. The students sure didn’t get any benefit.”
My daughter just started her Disney College Program last week. She makes $9.50/hr, I think pays $75/wk for her shared apartment (just like a dorm, but cheaper), has her uniform (oops, costume) provided and cleaned for her, gets 3 park passes for every 150 hours she works, plus of course she gets in the parks for free. She gets a 20% employee discount on merchandise. There is no requirement for her to take any courses, and her college does not give credit for them if she did. Some colleges do, most do not. The only thing her college has done for her is agreed that her merit scholarship will still be there when she returns, as it has a condition that it is for 8 consecutive semesters. I don’t think it is much different than working at any other retail store, fast food restaurant, summer camp job. They have about 2000 college students do the program every semester, from schools all over the country and even foreign schools.
Will she learn ‘college material’? Maybe, but she’s not earning college credit. She’s learning how to budget for food, how to cook for herself (she lives in a sorority and has meals served), how to show up day after day for a job. I was not terribly keen on this, but she did everything necessary to make it happen, including paying the deposit, filling out all the forms herself, finding roommates. She has some learning disabilities including planning, so that was a big project for her.
Have I given Disney way too much of my money over the years? Absolutely.
In the name of “productivity”, and “globalization”, I guess.
When things got “really bad” at one of my previous work place, a colleague said that the only workable solution is to significantly reduce American’s cost of living to be close to that of the workers in the third world countries. But this is almost impossible.
Of course, at some management level, they do not need to lower their living standard while living here - they “manage” the projects that have been outsourced to those lower COL countries. When the whole corporate culture becomes like this, the non-managers (who are the lucky ones to still have the jobs here in the US) and the managers do not have their interests aligned with each other, because the higher managers will pressure the lower or mid-level managers to keep reducing the domestic workforce and shopping the jobs overseas. It takes a certain kind of “personality” to be a manager like this. In the end, very few technical people in such a company will stay at the engineering level due to the hostile environment. If these technical people have children, it is often the case that their children never want to be in this line of jobs after having seen that their parents are treated like this. So more and more of our engineering schools (especially at the grad school levels) recruit students from overseas. It is like a chain reaction.
Why did they get to choose how to spend your money?
mcat2 has been pushed around by his relatives, sadly.
It was because one of them had done a big favor for us so we had to return the favor. At least they helped with the expenses for where we stayed for those nights. (I think it was 5 days 4 night, or 4 days 3 nights.)
True, some “favors” have lots of LONG strings attached.
I used to think I had something wrong with me, I can’t stand wdw. I don’t get the adults who go over and over without kids…too much of the world to see for me to want to waste it on make believe. Add in the screaming overexcited kids, the obnoxious pushy parents…ugh. My d went again with a friend and she came back and said never again.
Has anyone shared this gem yet? A bank required, as part of its severance, that fired IT workers be available for continued assistance/support either in person or by phone for up to 2 years after they were fired-- with no pay. http://www.computerworld.com/article/2994787/it-careers/bank-s-severance-deal-requires-it-workers-to-be-on-call-for-two-years.html