Bust Tales, Woo-oo!

Life is like a hurricane here in Duckburg, and in an economic era of turmoil between workers and the ultra-wealthy one multi-billionaire is fighting beak and talon to keep from paying his workers a decent wage.

Scrooge McDuck is one of the wealthiest people in the world according to Forbes, listing his net worth well above the likes of Tony Stark, Richie Rich, C. Montgomery Burns, Smaug, and many others. As CEO and Founder of McDuck Enterprises, he has his hands in almost every business arena whether it be fast food, oil refineries, or adventuring. McDuck’s wealth is so vast, in fact, that he built a one-of-a-kind money bin, complete with diving board so that he could literally swim in cash, which can’t possibly be sanitary.

But workers at the lowest levels of McDuck Enterprises will tell you that wealth locked away in a giant bin does not trickle down.

“We’ve been asking them to raise our pay for years,” says Delphine Caldwell, a barista at Quackbucks, a chain of coffee shops owned by McDuck Enterprises. “Some of us started talking about forming a union. It hasn’t been going well.”

“Everytime we have a meeting,” says Quackbucks Solidarity leader Michelle Lautner, “management pipes in this loud bagpipe music through the store’s PA system so we can’t concentrate.”

“That and the non-stop propaganda campaign,” adds Caldwell, “are making it near impossible to organize.”

Quackbucks management did not respond to our request for information on their union busting tactics or why they went with “Quackbucks” when “Starducks” is clearly a better pun.

Digging a little further, we found that an aggressive response to unionizing wasn’t uncommon amongst McDuck Enterprises companies.

“We were starting talks of forming a union,” says Dermott Guthrie, a boom mic operator for DuckWorks Films, “and they sent those badger guys down to intimidate us. Like they didn’t do any outright violence or anything, but we knew that’s what they were there to convey.”

[Editor’s note: They’re supposed to be beagles.]

Other companies have reported similar instances of threats and the like.

Marshall Gandy, a train engineer for the AmQuak Railways shared this tale:

“We were about ready to strike. McDuck and them were going to congress to try to get them to force us to take a deal, but we weren’t gonna budge. We had been working with no sick time and ridiculous hours, it needed to end. Instead of making those concessions he sent that friggin’ Gizmoduck thing to the VFW where we were having our meeting and he just disassembled all our cars and left them in piles of parts in the parking lot. Then he says to us, he says ‘I can put them back together faster than you can say “blatherskite”, but first you gotta sign that deal’. We took the shitty deal and my truck ain’t run right since.”

You might wonder how McDuck is able to operate a legitimate business and still employ such tactics against his own workers. Well, for that we need to look no further than the local government of the state of Calisoto.

“There’s a reason McDuck Enterprises is incorporated in Calisoto,” says Emily Hartwood, an activist for change operating in and around Duckburg. “The government here is super pro-business, even at the expense of the people. It’s how McDuck is able to basically own the entire city of Duckburg with no interference from the state government. Hell, he even owns the utilities and waste management systems. And not for free, mind you. No, it’s all subsidized through state taxes.”

Yes, it seems every time you order a fast food burger or flush the toilet in Duckburg you’re adding to McDuck’s ever growing wealth.

“He owns the entire government of Calisota,” says Hartwood. “He’s got governor Swan DeSantis in his pocket. He can do whatever he wants: ignore environmental regulations, pay substandard wages, you name it and he can do it. This duck hasn’t paid a dime in taxes for decades”

Speaking of dimes….

“Oh, that whole Number One Dime story is bullshit,” says Hartwood, referring to McDuck’s story of receiving a single dime for a shoeshine in Glasgow and using it to build his fortune. “You should really look into where his money really comes from.”

For that we spoke to Harland Rowin of The Ducksonian Museum’s history archives.

“If Scrooge McDuck ever worked as a shoeshine, there is no historical evidence to support it. However, the McDuck fortune can certainly be traced to a time before he had even been born.”

So if Scrooge McDuck isn’t the self-made duck he’s always claimed to be, then where does his fortune come from?

“In the late nineteenth century,” says Rowin, “the McDuck family had established rubber plantations in the newly colonized country of Liberia, where workers were exploited for their labor. It is here where the McDuck fortune originated.”

“In fact,” adds Rowin, “McDuck’s former claims of being an ‘adventure capitalist’ probably stems from his and his family’s frequent trips to Liberia to keep a close watch on their investments.”

I mean, “rewrite history” is right there in the theme song.

From the origin of his fortune to the profits he rakes in every second of every day, McDuck has always flat-out refused to share with his workers, whether via their paychecks or less directly in his refusal to pay taxes.

“McDuck and his ilk are in for a rude awakening,” says Hartwood. “Workers are the ones filling the money bin he’s swimming in, and they know it. Without our labor that can all go away. It’s not a matter of if we’ll stand up to him, but a matter of when.”

To the workers of McDuck Enterprises, we wish you luck in your tales of derring-do. Woo-oo.