WEBVTT - Businessweek Extra-Abigail Disney

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<v Speaker 1>This is Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Jason

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<v Speaker 1>Kelly and I'm Carol Master. Welcome to the Bloomberg Business

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<v Speaker 1>Week Extra A. It's a weekly podcast bringing you an

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<v Speaker 1>interview you probably won't hear anywhere else. And this next

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<v Speaker 1>guest she is someone we've talked to before. She's talked

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<v Speaker 1>a lot about closing the wealth gap, and she recently

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<v Speaker 1>gave a Ted talk earlier this month. It's all about

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<v Speaker 1>really talking to corporations to offer respect, dignity, and a

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<v Speaker 1>living wage to everyone who works for them, starting with

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<v Speaker 1>the company that bears her name, Abigail Disney. She's a

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<v Speaker 1>documentary filmmaker at Fork Films. She talked to us about

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<v Speaker 1>a worker first era that she hopes is dawning. I

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<v Speaker 1>think there needs to be a kind of a mindset

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<v Speaker 1>reset um because I think that most people running companies

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<v Speaker 1>right now, we're in business school maybe twenty five weeks.

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<v Speaker 1>They're only doing what they were sort of taught to do,

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<v Speaker 1>which is to maximize shareholder values, please every penny out

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<v Speaker 1>of the structure of the company me that they possibly could,

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<v Speaker 1>and that has squeezed workers dramatically. It's so interesting to

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<v Speaker 1>watch right now as we talk about, for instance, I

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<v Speaker 1>just heard a piece today about who's the front line worker?

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<v Speaker 1>When we get the textine, who do we include a

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<v Speaker 1>the front line worker? And they were saying, of course,

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<v Speaker 1>the people who clean the floors, the people who clean

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<v Speaker 1>up the rooms when the people leave hospitals are front

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<v Speaker 1>line workers because they're just as important as the doctors

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<v Speaker 1>in the nurses. So, you know, we have for a

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<v Speaker 1>long time kind of pretended as though those were sort

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<v Speaker 1>of nameless, faceless, interchangeable people who didn't really deserve a

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<v Speaker 1>livable wage. We need to completely reset our sensibilities about that.

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<v Speaker 1>If we're not willing to clean the toilets ourselves, but

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<v Speaker 1>someone who's got to do it for us, and we

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<v Speaker 1>can't run a business with us. And so where does

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<v Speaker 1>this conversation not just start, Abigail, but where does it

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<v Speaker 1>need to continue? Because I feel like there's more and

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<v Speaker 1>more lip service being paid to this. What does action

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<v Speaker 1>look like? Yeah, that's really the that's the question of

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<v Speaker 1>all questions. I hope and pray um and I'm putting

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<v Speaker 1>a lot of faith in the basic goodness of the

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<v Speaker 1>people who run companies and the CEOs and the board members.

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<v Speaker 1>I am hoping that if you appeal enough to their

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<v Speaker 1>consciences that they will start to feel a discomfort with

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<v Speaker 1>the way things are because the clear, clear, factive matter

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<v Speaker 1>is right now, what we do is not more leaky well,

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<v Speaker 1>And you know, it is interesting because I do think

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<v Speaker 1>there are a lot of CEOs that we have talked

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<v Speaker 1>to that seem to be more understanding of their employee

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<v Speaker 1>base and more sympathetic to the plights of those that

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<v Speaker 1>are just barely you know, getting by at this point.

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<v Speaker 1>But I do wonder as long as there is still

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<v Speaker 1>kind of news organizations like ours that you know, track

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<v Speaker 1>companies and we watch those quarterly earnings, and there's investors

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<v Speaker 1>in the marketplace, activists or others like yourself, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>who will put pressure on companies, um activists in other

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<v Speaker 1>ways to make sure that they can financially, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>kind of do as much as they can. I mean,

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<v Speaker 1>I don't know how does it really get much better,

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<v Speaker 1>especially when you look at the gaps sometimes between what

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<v Speaker 1>a CEO has made and what kind of the bulk

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<v Speaker 1>of workers are paid at companies right right, and that

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<v Speaker 1>you know that is that is such a great temperature

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<v Speaker 1>games a barometer of of what's going on in the

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<v Speaker 1>company because I frankly feel like if I'm taking home,

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<v Speaker 1>you know, many thousands of times what my medium worker takes,

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<v Speaker 1>I am going to have a hard time sleeping at night.

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<v Speaker 1>If I also know, at the same time I'm profitable

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<v Speaker 1>and many of my workers can't put food on the table,

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<v Speaker 1>there's something should go off in a person's heart and mind,

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<v Speaker 1>the conscience, and so you know, what I'm talking about

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<v Speaker 1>is a little bit of gushy touched, you know, kind

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<v Speaker 1>of lu lu thing, which is a mindset shift because actually,

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<v Speaker 1>if you look over the last fifty years what changed

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<v Speaker 1>in American business, most of it wasn't policy. Most of

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<v Speaker 1>it was mindset shifting and norms changing. And so you know,

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<v Speaker 1>in in nine two, it became legal, for instance, to

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<v Speaker 1>make a share buy back um because up until that

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<v Speaker 1>point it was considered totally unethical. Worker first, Abigail. In

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<v Speaker 1>some ways it is a holistic idea. In many ways

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<v Speaker 1>it is about just fear treatment. But it really and

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<v Speaker 1>I want to take us back to something we talked

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<v Speaker 1>about a little bit before we went to some news.

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<v Speaker 1>I mean, this is ultimately about sharing compensation and really

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<v Speaker 1>sort of driving that deeper into the company. This is doable.

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<v Speaker 1>It is totally doable. I mean, you know, we're Disney

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<v Speaker 1>is a totally different place this year than it was

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<v Speaker 1>last year. But but let's look at it from last year.

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<v Speaker 1>It made eleven and a half billion dollars of share

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<v Speaker 1>buy backs in and unless people still not consistently able

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<v Speaker 1>to put food on the table, was completely possible without

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<v Speaker 1>affecting their profitability. It would have affected the enormity of profits,

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<v Speaker 1>but it wouldn't have caused them to be unprofitable. To

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<v Speaker 1>ensure that some of those profits were shared with the

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<v Speaker 1>people who caused them to happen. You know, if the

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<v Speaker 1>janitor is not making that sidewalk absolutely clean, then Disney

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<v Speaker 1>isn't Disney. They give They bring value to the company,

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<v Speaker 1>no matter how lonely you might think their job is.

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<v Speaker 1>So why aren't more companies doing this and the go ahead?

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<v Speaker 1>I think that the shareholder crimacy story was a story

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<v Speaker 1>that took hold so quickly and so absolutely in in

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<v Speaker 1>part because I think governments UM in the eighties and

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<v Speaker 1>the nineties, both Quentin and and Reagan absorbed this idea

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<v Speaker 1>that the that the Cheryl the premacy story and the

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<v Speaker 1>kind of let business first UM way of understanding politics

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<v Speaker 1>and life, um was just absorbed with such unanimity that

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<v Speaker 1>I think we've forgot to question and remember that things

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<v Speaker 1>did not always work that way. I mean, I think

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<v Speaker 1>it's sometimes it happens that you forget that you're thinking

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<v Speaker 1>of an orthodoxy when you think of things and not

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<v Speaker 1>totally looking at all the options. So I think it's

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<v Speaker 1>a lack of imagination. Frankly, well and and Abigail, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>one might argue, I might argue in fact that candidly,

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<v Speaker 1>just doing it by the numbers is easier, you know

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<v Speaker 1>what I mean. It's like, if you've got this goal

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<v Speaker 1>of like the only way you're measured is by your

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<v Speaker 1>share price or your body online, your EPs, that's easy.

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<v Speaker 1>To measure someone's health and well being and happiness that's

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<v Speaker 1>harder to do in in many ways, it's harder, right, right, right?

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<v Speaker 1>And isn't it interesting? I mean because it isn't Disney

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<v Speaker 1>in the business of someone's happiness? Um, so it should

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<v Speaker 1>be something they're they're they're paying attention to. And the

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<v Speaker 1>irony of what's going on with workers there is really

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<v Speaker 1>hitting I think their customer base really hard. That is

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<v Speaker 1>not a brand that will live forever unless they really

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<v Speaker 1>pay attention to what is eloding there when they treat

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<v Speaker 1>the workers the way they do. So, you know, Notlton

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<v Speaker 1>Freedmen came in nice and seveny he said what he

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<v Speaker 1>said people just uh absorbed, almost without question. And one

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<v Speaker 1>of the things he was saying in in that, in

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<v Speaker 1>that piece and in all that he taught us afterwards,

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<v Speaker 1>was if it can't be measured, it doesn't matter. And

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<v Speaker 1>that was I think maybe one of the most fatal

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<v Speaker 1>blows to the corporate imagination because and and Disney such

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<v Speaker 1>a great company, look at that for because everything that

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<v Speaker 1>makes them profitable is an ineffable paying off the imagination.

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<v Speaker 1>It can't be measured by nature, and so you cannot

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<v Speaker 1>wrestle everything into a mathematical equation. And and that's business

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<v Speaker 1>has to make sense things. And that was Abigail Disney,

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<v Speaker 1>documentary filmmaker at Fork Films. She's been a loud voice

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<v Speaker 1>of patriotic millionaire. She's got some takes, Carol, that's for sure.

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<v Speaker 1>She certainly does. You've been listening to Blueberg Business Week Extra.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Master. This is Bomber