Trump declares war on Goodyear after MAGA hat ban in Kansas tyre factory
BAD YEAR FOR GOODYEAR: Insane social justice apparel policy causes media blowout for US tyre giant. Another epic ‘get woke and go broke’ political correctness initiative?
News broke this week, of course, about a new ‘zero tolerance’ dress code on the factory floor at a Goodyear plant in Topeka, Kansas.
First asset to leak was this slide from an employee training session, obtained by 13WIBW News:
This is essentially the Orwellian face of corporate political correctness in 2020. Clothing, hats, face masks (whatever) promoting Black Lives Matter and LGBT Pride - totally acceptable.
But Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, Make America Great Again, and political statements generally, were deemed unacceptable on workplace apparel by Goodyear management.
I am frankly shocked that any rational society or large organisation in the free world has a problem with the concept of lives mattering, black, blue or ‘all’. Is this not a proposition at the absolute core of equality? All lives matter, surely. Can we all agree on that, at least? Old lives, new lives, the full colour palette of lives, regardless of gender or what you had for breakfast, et cetera?
If we don’t build society on the concept of all lives mattering what have we become? How have we allowed this to be weaponised? How is this Goodyear policy going to achieve anything other than to undermine cohesiveness, and invite public ridicule? Like, these are the only lives that can matter, from nine to five. Please.
Goodyear, of course, has not denied that this Orwellian - let’s call it - ‘training session’ took place. But they have issued a weasel-word statement also reported by 13WIBW:
“Goodyear is committed to fostering an inclusive and respectful workplace where all of our associates can do their best in a spirit of teamwork.”
...Which, as I can see, is 24 words from the corporate communications team, designed to consume airtime, while saying absolutely nothing about the issue in question.
Do ‘all lives’ actually matter?
Goodyear used to think lives mattered - all lives. The Goodyear of the olden days even had a tyre dedicated to the concept of lives actually mattering. And a ‘fear’ campaign designed to get you across the line.
‘Buy these tyres or risk seeing your child in a wheelchair.’ (I don’t see any other interpretation of the unique selling proposition of that advertisement.) This was before seatbelts, of course, when simple but important concepts like lives mattering were not weaponised by people with hidden agendas.
I actually thought this story was a prank, until the audio of the training leaked as well.
Some people may wish to express their views on social justice or inequity or equity issues such as black lives matter or LGBTQ pride on their face coverings, shirts or wristbands. That will be deemed approve because it complies with a zero-tolerance stance.
However if any associate wears all blue, white lives matter shirts or face coverings - that will be not appropriate.
-Transcribed
Do ordinary people really care?
This is a factory floor, right? Where dudes and dudettes make tyres. What do you think they think when the HR department imposes this kind of policy from ‘upstairs’? I think the balanced, median view of people in this position, and in society generally, is that they couldn’t really care less - except to the extent of objecting to this stuff being endlessly pushed down their throats in the workplace and on the news.
Average people just want to get along, and concern themselves with stuff that actually matters - like making ends meet during a very confronting year - at least that’s what I take out of the conversations I routinely have. Perhaps I’m mixing with the wrong crowd...
Most people think all lives matter, and they don’t care how you vote, or if you identify as a man, a woman or anyone or anything else, including a friggin’ teapot.
(I have yet to meet anyone who identifies as a teapot. But I do look forward to it, in the future. I’d be quite interested in ‘why’ on that one. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. We’ve certainly come a long way on this. Like, when I was a kid, if you seriously thought you were a teapot, you would have been committed to an institution.)
Yes, Mr President?
Most people clearly don’t care what you may or may not wear in a factory in Kansas.
But most people are not the 45th President of Retardistan, who Twittered:
Nice punctuation there, Mr President. If I were the leader of the free world - and I do have plans, sadly hindered by the zombie-virus - I would rise above some issues, and this would certainly be one of them.
Especially if my presidential protection vehicle - the so-called ‘beast’ - rolled on Goodyears. Which it does. So there’s that. And especially as The Donald, who railed against political correctness during his 2016 election campaign, is campaigning this year as a warrior against (quote) “left-wing cancel culture" which of course seeks to punish or ban people or companies when they say or do things that politically correct people just don’t like.
In a speech at Mount Rushmore on July 3, Orange Man Six said:
"One of their political weapons is 'cancel culture' - driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees. This is the very definition of totalitarianism, and it is completely alien to our culture and our values, and it has absolutely no place in the United States of America."
So, as far as the President is concerned, cancel culture is completely alien to the country’s culture and values, and therefore unacceptable and abhorrent … except of course when it’s him advocating for said cancellation.
So that’s interesting.
Goodyear CEO chimes in…
Rich Kramer, the Chairman, President and CEO of Goodyear, clarified the company’s position on all of this on August 22 (last Thursday), by throwing an un-named employee at the Kansas plant under the bus (vis-a-vis accountability for this snafu), and claiming that bans were not approved by the real shot-callers upstairs.
I presume what he means by the excerpt below is that they can now wear Blue Lives Matter hats, masks and/or shirts.
Pro tip: Just say what you mean, dude. “Expressing support through apparel..” - it’d be funny if it weren’t so tragic and linguistically pathetic.
But for balance I have to point out that Mr Kramer might not be motivated by unbridled inclusiveness. He might just have crunched the numbers on how many tyres his company sells to police departments across the USA. And he wouldn’t want them going ‘100 per cent cancel culture’ on him...
Also, the refraining from political endorsement by way of apparel has now seemingly been downgraded to a request.
But he failed to address whether all lives matter as much as black and blue ones. Or whether workers could make expressions of this nature via apparel. Amazingly.
Get woke: Go broke
It seems interesting to me how many companies get needlessly embroiled in this (what I would consider) commercially dangerous sideshow nonsense. Especially in the USA, which allegedly has the protection of the freedom of speech enshrined and legally codified in its constitution.
A final suggestion for Mr Kramer. An obvious one, for you big thinkers in the boardroom. If you’re a tyre company and you’re going to have a blowout and veer unexpectedly left on the hyper-woke highway, issue your employees with a uniform, and make wearing it mandatory. There’s a thought. You’re welcome.
You would thus sidestep all media scrutiny and public criticism. You would not have to make a long list of things that cannot be worn at work. And you would thus be able to concentrate on, I dunno, making tyres.
‘Goodyear issues uniforms to workers’: It’s hardly going to lead the nightly news, even on a slow day.
If Mr Kramer needs uniform inspiration, I would point out Chairman Mao did a damn good job with uniforms in the 1950s, if memory serves. They were very popular. Mao Zedong himself was so pleased with his uniform and its uptake he even named it the ‘Mao suit’. Which is hardly, like, totally self-indulgent.
The Mao suit even became a counter-culture classic in the West in the 1960s and ‘70s. Wikipedia has an excellent entry on the Mao suit. Perhaps it’s time for the Mao suite to be, if not the new black, then at least the new blue and yellow.
Perhaps we could adapt in some wide boots (below) for cultural context, and historic perspective. Continuity. Whatever. I wonder how that would go over with the workers in Kansas? I’ll join you in eagerly awaiting that Powerpoint being leaked to the press.
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