But what about Disney's CEO? I'll bet he didn't have to put on a furry costume once last year, and he has gained over $1 billion from stock options since 1983. If the board of directors really believes that giving their chief executive a stake in the company will make him perform better, why not also give it to the poor guy with the big ears suffocating in the suit? He probably has more contact with the customers than Michael Eisner, the CEO.

Some employees are privy to the 401K plan that matches their contribution with Disney stock, but even these plans have been given less stock than the amount granted to just one man.

If the wealth given to Eisner had been divided among Disney's 117,000 employees, on average each would have received $9,000 in company stock. Quite significant, given that the median US financial wealth in 1998 was $22,400.

The recent book Economic Apartheid in America, by Chuck Collins and Felice Yeskel, describes how from 1983 to 1998, the share of the nation’s wealth held by the bottom 99% fell, while the assets of the wealthiest one percent, those with net worth over $3.3 million, rose by 42%. The net worth of the poorest two-fifths of households dropped by an astonishing 76%, and the middle class gained only 10 percent over those 15 years of economic growth.

We now live in a country where the wealth of the richest 1% of households exceeds the combined wealth of the bottom 90%. At "The Happiest Place on Earth,” the gap is even wider. As a shareholder, I believe that this inequity is not healthy for the company. As a member of Responsible Wealth, a group of wealthy Americans who advocate more shared prosperity, I believe that these inequities are not healthy for our society. So several of us filed a shareholder resolution to get Disney to create deeper ownership by more employees. Our resolution, presented at the February 19 shareholder meeting in Hartford, CT, asked Disney to limit the amount of stock given to the executive officers to 10% of the total stock options received by employees.

A study by the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO) shows that employees in companies with Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) are paid 5% to 12% higher than employees in comparable jobs in non-ESOP companies; they also have three times the retirement assets.

Not only is employee ownership the right thing to do, it also makes good business sense to adopt this resolution. The NCEO study also showed that firms that have broad-based employee ownership and employee involvement programs grow 8% to 11% per year faster than would have been expected without this combination of programs. A tracking of 350 public companies with at least 10% broad-based employee ownership shows that from 1992 through 1997, shareholder return was over 40% higher than for broad market indexes.

In other words, everyone wins when ownership is shared. Disney has an opportunity to both improve its bottom line and contribute to healthier communities at the same time.

Disney's management doesn't see it that way. Disney has opposed the resolution each year we have filed it. They say that top managers deserve stock options, but not Pluto, Donald and the rest of the gang. Isn't that Goofy?

Michele McGeoy is a Disney shareholder in the Bay Area, and a member of Responsible Wealth.

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