Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Pixar Exec At Heart Of Industry-Wide Pay Scandal

Photo illustration via Cartoon Brew
Cartoon Brew explains:
Pixar and Disney Animation president Ed Catmull has always had a reputation as a decent person, but newly revealed court documents show that he’s been working against the interests of Pixar’s employees for years, as well as trying to hurt other animation studios who didn’t play by his rules... Catmull’s deposition and emails from the lawsuit confirm that he was instrumental in operating a secret wage-theft cartel that violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. But it’s even worse than you think. The cartel orchestrated in large part by Catmull robbed potential wages and job opportunities from thousands of animation industry workers at other studios, including DreamWorks, Lucasfilm, Robert Zemeckis’ ImageMovers, the now-defunct Orphanage, and Walt Disney Animation Studios... 

...As Catmull and other Pixar honchos and Disney got richer and richer during the CG feature animation boom, the employees’ salaries at Pixar and beyond were being artificially controlled through illegal means. With these documents, we now know that DreamWorks and Disney also undermined free market principles by colluding to restrict their employees’ wages and job opportunities. These revelations extend beyond the scope of the class-action suit, which is in the process of being settled with a paltry $9 million slap on the wrist for Pixar and Lucasfilm.
Interestingly enough, the comments section of the article has exploded with anonymous industry members coming forward and contributing a number of horror stories. They've been screen-capped, just in case they later "disappear mysteriously":



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