Disney settles suit over women's pay for $43 million

Walt Disney has agreed to pay $43.3 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that its female employees in California earned $150 million less than their male counterparts over an eight-year period, the plaintiffs' lawyers said in a statement on Monday.

As part of the settlement, Disney has agreed to retain a labour economist for three years to analyse pay equity among full-time, non-union California employees below the vice president level, and address differences, the three law firms representing the plaintiffs said.

The suit was originally filed by LaRonda Rasmussen in 2019, after she learned that six men with the same job title earned substantially more than her, including one man with several years less experience, who was earning $20,000 a year more than she did.

Some 9,000 current and former female employees of the entertainment company eventually joined the suit. Disney attempted to stop the class action, but a judge ruled last December that it could proceed, Andrus Anderson, one of the law firms, said at the time.

“I strongly commend Ms Rasmussen and the women who brought this discrimination suit against Disney, one of the largest entertainment companies in the world. They risked their careers to raise pay disparity at Disney,” Lori Andrus, a partner at Andrus Anderson, said in Monday's statement.

Disney has previously disputed the lawsuit's allegations and findings. It did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for a comment.

The case was also supported by an analysis of Disney's human resource data from April 2015 until December 2022 that found female Disney employees were paid roughly 2 per cent less than their male counterparts. The analysis was conducted by David Neumark, a University of California Irvine professor and labour economist.

The settlement agreement, which was filed in a California state court, still requires approval by a judge, according to the lawyers.