Settlement Reached Between Animation Workers and Disney

Through a class action lawsuit, animation workers with the Walt Disney Company, Lucasfilm, and Pixar have reached a $100 million settlement. The lawsuit claimed that the “defendants violated antitrust laws by conspiring to set animation wages via non-poaching agreements”. Earlier in January, a federal judge approved a preliminary settlement of $50 million with DreamWorks Animation after smaller settlements with Sony Imageworks and Blue Sky. Disney and its companies were the final defendants in the litigation.

The lawsuit was initially filed back in 2014 by a former DreamWorks Animation artist, senior character effects artist Robert Nitsch, a former ImageMovers Digital artist, production engineer David Wentworth, and digital artist Georgia Cano who held jobs at Rhythm & Hues, Walt Disney Feature Animation, and ImageMovers Digital. The full list of employees in the suit included animation and visual effects employees at Pixar, Lucasfilm, DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc., the Walt Disney Company, and Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc. from 2004 to 2010. Also included were employees from Blue Sky Studios, Inc. from 2005 to 2010 and Two Pic MC from 2007 to 2010. The origins of the suit can be traced back to Department of Justice antitrust complaints in 2010 against Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, and Lucasfilm, resulting in the companies agreeing to “refrain from wage-fixing practices for a period of five years”.

An official hearing on the Disney settlement has been set for March 9 at the US District Court in San Jose, California.

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