Disney has agreed to pay $43 million to settle a lawsuit that it paid female employees less than their male counterparts in similar roles for nearly a decade.
The settlement agreement, reached Monday, stems from a 2019 lawsuit filed by LaRonda Rasmussen. She claims 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.
About 9,000 women, who were both former and current employees, joined the lawsuit.
Disney disputed the allegations and didn’t admit fault.
“We have always been committed to paying our employees fairly and have demonstrated that commitment throughout this case, and we are pleased to have resolved this matter,” a spokesperson told CNN.
As part of the settlement, Disney has to hire a labor economist to analyze pay equity among full-time, non-union California employees below the vice president level for three years, and fix the differences, the three law firms representing the plaintiffs said.
“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 a statement.
The plaintiffs accused Disney of paying female employees less than their male counterparts when they started at the company because their pay was lower at previous companies. Disney didn’t factor in their gender pay disparities, the Wall Street Journal noted.
Disney said that a 2022 review of its pay policies revealed that women earned 99.4% of what men earned and that it the case shouldn’t be classified as a class action because pay is determined by hundreds of managers across several divisions at the sprawling company.
The settlement agreement still requires approval by a judge.
Reuters contributed to this report.
