Really, you don't think the shareholders are taking a hit? Apparently you haven't checked the stock price of Disney lately. The dividend will help buffer the huge hit in the stock price by a little bit, but there is still plenty of pain. And do you not expect a corporation to furlough employees when they are forced to close down all operations by an event that was not of their making? At least the employees were furloughed and not outright laid off like lots of companies have done to employees. Disney could have laid off employees and then taken advantage of the daily increasing unemployment rate to rehire workers at cheaper wages.

Bottom line, corporations are owned by their shareholders. Corporations are in business to maximize the returns of the people who invest in and own the corporation. If the corporation goes bankrupt, those same shareholders are at the bottom of the pecking order when the company is liquidated.

It's called capitalism, not socialism.

Stock holders always come first as they are the owners of a company.

Never been to Disney, don’t plan on going to Disney. I don’t even like driving by Disney.

$500,000,000.00

Rattle That Sabre Blueash
 

So are you a former Disney executive ? A Former (surely not current) Disney Stockholder ? Are you an expert in their HR Policies ? understand what they have already done for their employees ? Do you know the difference between a layoff and a furlough ? OF course you realize that they have ZERO current income from the theme parks. You didn't mention that Disney will continue to pay ALL health insurance costs, including that normally paid by the employee. . BTW, Disney stock is down 30% YTD and 26% down for the past year. Is that not enough of a "hit" for a stockholder to take ?? Disney, like other listed corporations, is owned by the stockholders, and corporate responsibility requires a balance between them and the employees .. Seems to me given the severity of the situation, they are doing a decent job.

Once again for the guys in the back row:

1. the added income is temporary.
2. if an employee is recalled to his job, or offered a similar job at similar pay in a similar location, and he turns the job down - he loses ALL his unemployment and risks being required to repay what he was already paid so far.

The "incentive" for not working, for employees, is not as valuable as the incentive to find a replacement job or hope for your old job back.

Disney is not just theme parks. In fact it's not even just Disney. Disney owns:

ABC, ESPN, Touchstone Pictures, Marvel, Lucasfilm, half of A&E, 50% of the History Channel, 50% of Lifetime, Pixar, 10% of Vice Media, and Core Publishing.

It also owns:
Star Wars, the Muppets, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Disney Princesses/Princes, the franchises of Chronicles of Narnia, Pirates of the Caribbean, Winnie the Pooh, Indiana Jones, and Grey's Anatomy.

It also owns venture capital companies that brought the GoPro, Photobucket, and a bunch of other companies to the world, production companies for YouTube channels, management compenies, and management companies.

While they took a bite due to the closing of theme parks, they are still doing VERY well with everything else.

Remember Euro Disney? My family won't forget it any time soon. Grandma offered each of us our choice of stock in it, or cash value, when it first went public. I took the cash. I was the only one in the family to benefit from it. The rest lost it all. And Disney continued to thrive.

Disney won't be tanking any time soon. But their employees are already in the process.

Not correct regarding losing unemployment. The stimulus bill changed the normal rules for collecting unemployment. It allows employees to quit their job and still collect unemployment. Many employers have complained that they wanted to keep paying their employees, but the employees would rather collect unemployment because they are getting more money to not work. So, it is hard for an employer to compete when the Government offers more pay to not work.

Well it’s the cost of capital. Without capital corporations can’t operate. Shareholders are getting a very modest dividend compared to what the interest would be if they replaced equity with debt. Shareholders are owners of the company. Employees are stakeholders. So don’t get all pompous on a dividend that represents a return on risk that investors have taken

And since Carnival suspended their dividend their cost of capital will increase. So that means less money to pay expenses. Like salaries.

nice response to the OP....

Its about the cost of capital and risk/reward relationship. When you get rewarded for a risky investment then people say you are greedy. Disney stock is $100 a share and pays $ 1.76 annual dividend. What fair rate of return would you like for an entertainment company with theme parks that cost hundreds of millions a month when sitting empty?

Business 101!

The board of directors and executive chief management team has a fiduciary responsibility to their owners! It is to maximize shareholder wealth by stock price growth. All their signed employment contracts state this! If they fail executing their fiduciary legal responsibilities they can be sued either through the corporation or as an individual !

I agree that in these bad times they could stop dividends and save the cash for future cost.

People who own their stock bought it mainly based on their outstanding dividend payments. Over 65% of their shares are owned by unions, pension funds, mutual funds, IRA retirement funds, etc. if they stop paying dividends they hurt their shareholders which many times are your neighbors.

Shareholders cannot apply for unemployment or get $1,200 free cash from the government.

How is it corporate greed to not pay employees that are not performing any work?

If your lawn guy doesn't show up to mow your lawn, do you still pay him? How paying your barber or hairdresser for not cutting your hair?

Where does this idea that businesses have a responsibility to pay people that are not working? Isn't that why we have an unemployment program?

It's so sad that so many in this country have been brainwashed to hate anyone that has accomplished anything.

Not corporate greed, individual greed by those that have Disney in their portfolios. They want their dividend since that is what their strategy is....if your dividend is diverted without your input would you be ok with that? If the investors are then I assume the Corporations could divert dividend payments for whatever they determine is more important.