Disney workers call for Sandberg protest

Barnard’s commencement speaker, Sheryl Sandberg, will be asked to do more than give a speech when she arrives.

Union workers are planning to circulate a petition to Barnard students calling on Sandberg to support affordable health care for Disney hotel workers.

Apart from being the chief operating officer of Facebook, Sandberg is also on the board of directors at the Walt Disney Company. Recently, Disney instituted a new healthcare plan for its hotel employees which would require them to pay a monthly fee for health care benefits, according to Unite Here Local 11, the hotel workers union.

“We see Sandberg as a progressive,” said Leigh Shelton, a spokesperson for Unite Here Local 11. “She has spoken out for women before, and since a large number of the hotel workers are female we feel that she will be sympathetic to our cause.”

Unite Here Local 11 contacted Lucha, a Columbia/Barnard social action student group, to help gain student support for the petition, which asks Sandberg to “do everything in her power to help the more than 2,000 Disneyland Hotel workers who have been fighting for three years to maintain affordable family health care.”

Although the group hasn’t gotten involved, Lucha member Malena Arnaud, BC ’11, said she was concerned.

“I think the union feels that Barnard students are in a position to makes demands of Sandberg,” Arnaud said. “One of the things they [Barnard officials] kept saying is that Sandberg supports women in entrepreneurship and was invited to speak because she is a powerful woman. She should definitely support workers, and specifically women workers, because they will be the future of this country.”

Barnard President Debora Spar said that Barnard’s focus was on Sandberg’s accomplishments as a female entrepreneur.

“Ms. Sandberg’s position on The Walt Disney Company’s Board of Directors is one among many of her affiliations, and we certainly respect the right of Disney’s employees and supporters to lobby that company’s leadership,” Spar said in an email. “Barnard, though, has invited Ms. Sandberg to our commencement ceremonies because of her unique perspective as an executive at Facebook and her accomplished career in both the private and public sectors.”

Some Barnard seniors felt President Spar’s position on the issue was the right one.

“I think that she [Sandberg] should support the cause because healthcare is an important issue, but it has nothing to do with Barnard,” Marisa Franklin, BC ’11, said. “As our speaker it would be interesting to hear what she has to say on the issue, but it isn’t up to us to decide what she speaks about.”

Arnaud, however, doesn’t think her roles are mutually exclusive.

“I think separating her accomplishments at Facebook and her work at Disney is unfortunate,” Arnaud said.

amanda.stibel@columbiaspectator.com