There it is. Disney Imagineers have not been happy about some of their departments relocating to the Orlando area from California. They have been upset about it for months, and now they are using the controversy around the “Don’t Say Gay” Bill to try and leverage a halt to the relocation.

We actually saw this coming. When you looked at the lists of demands the “Walkout” was asking for, two of them were directly related to this exact issue, which said to us that this sounds like California people and not the Florida employees.

“Mr. Chapek has noted: “Starting immediately, we are increasing our support for advocacy groups to combat similar legislation in other states. We are hard at work creating a new framework for our political giving that will ensure our advocacy better reflects our values.” While we appreciate this sentiment, we require more details.
TWDC must publicly commit to an actionable plan that protects employees from hateful legislation including:

• • Reflecting their commitment to the LGBTQIA+ community by stopping construction and investment in the state of Florida until hateful legislation is repealed. 

  • Stopping any efforts to move employees to Florida office locations, ensuring employee safety and employment retention.

  • Guaranteeing no employee will be terminated when denying relocation to FL.“

Of course I’m not saying all of their demands have to do with moving departments, but we found it a bit odd that they would do this walkout and demand a lot of things that Bob Chapek already did after he did them. But this seems to be a big part of the demands. California people do not want to move to Florida. I know that some Imagineers already quit Disney over the move that was announced last year.

After 14 years at Disney I’m going to be hanging up my mouse ears. I never thought I’d be stepping away, but sometimes life throws you a curveball. In June we learned that Imagineering would be relocating to Florida. My wife and I looked long and hard at the possibility, but we pic.twitter.com/YRUlwwh6G1

— Kevin Lively (@Livelyland) October 13, 2021

just couldn’t make it work with family and finances here in California. I held out hope that something might change that, but about a month ago I received official word that my role would be locating. When someone puts an end date on something you love as much as I love what I pic.twitter.com/TP1FOMjhVO

— Kevin Lively (@Livelyland) October 13, 2021

While a lot of Imagineers are not part of this community, most of the Imagineers don’t want to move and will leverage this angle to publicly shame the Disney CEO into caving to their demands so they don’t have to move.

The Wrap is already running with this (I don’t know how much of an exclusive it is, we called it in one of our videos on our sister channel days ago.)

For that that aren’t aware of the Imagineering situation, Disney is creating a new campus in the Orlando area and plan to move some departments there. Likely over the taxes and business shut downs that happened in California.

The Walt Disney Company gave Imagineers 90 days to decide if they would relocate and according to people The Wrap talked to, it seems a lot of them said they would go, but had no intention of actually relocating. So they misled the company?

It probably isn’t a good look for their protest to the Florida bill to shoe horn in a protest for the move, even if they are related for some workers. Now it comes across as leveraging the Florida Cast Members issues to get something for the California employees, even if I understand the reasoning.

I don’t know if Disney can afford to just lose the millions they’ve already spent on the Lake Nona Campus. I hate to say it, but it could end up being easier to just replace people. They already have been as Imagineers quit and move to other jobs to avoid the relocation.