Goodyear Tire partly backs down, revises policy against “Blue Lives Matter”
Unclear whether “All Lives Matter” also still banned, but “MAGA” appears to fall under the political slogan ban.
Yesterday we reported on a leaked photo of a Goodyear Tire diversity training session, Goodyear Tires: “Black Lives Matter” Okay At Work, “Blue Lives Matter” “All Lives Matter” “MAGA” Prohibited.
Goodyear’s response was to call into question the authenticity of the leaked photo. While not outright calling it a hoax, Goodyear asserted that the slide “was not created or distributed by Goodyear corporate, nor was it part of a diversity training class” (emphasis in original). Goodyear, however, did not disavow the message of the slide, to the contrary, it reiterated the policy.
The Goodyear explanation itself has been called into doubt with the leak of audio from the training session. WIBW reported:
New audio from the training at the Topeka Goodyear plant gives more details about what was talked about in that meeting, including updates on their zero-tolerance policy.
The meeting has come into question after a photo of a slide showed what is and isn’t acceptable in the workplace.
13 NEWS-WIBW obtained an audio recording of the presentation. The speaker referenced instances of racial graffiti in the locker room, and detailed what is and is not allowed under the company’s zero-tolerance policy.
“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 approved because it applies with a zero-tolerance stance,” the speaker said during the meeting. “However if any associate wears all, blue, white lives matter shirts or face coverings, that will be not appropriate.”
The unidentified speaker says the rules were created to make a better work environment.
“The rules around now what you can wear. Let’s try and comply with these so you know everybody feels good in this factory. I want to make sure guys, think about what we do in this factory, in this factory right. We all work together to make tires that’s what we do. That’s what we get paid to do. So, let’s continue to do that and do the right thing and keep this place what it has always been, a good place to work,” the speaker said.
The speaker does not specifically mention the Donald Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan shown on the slide, but did say political campaigns are a no-go.
“Democrat. Republican. Trump. Biden. Sanders. Whatever. That will no longer be allowed in the plant,” he listed off.
CONTROVERSIAL GOODYEAR AUDIO: New audio reveals why Topeka Goodyear said All Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter and MAGA attire are unacceptable. pic.twitter.com/5MNo2EAH3w
— NBC15 News (@nbc15_madison) August 20, 2020
The revelation that Goodyear effectively lied about it’s own training sessions caused even more of an uproar.
Now Goodyear has backtracked, partially.
The CEO of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company has released a statement clarifying the company’s stance regarding what is and is not allowed inside the workplace.
According to Rich Kramer, CEO and president of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, the slide that was leaked from the Topeka plant was created by an employee at the Topeka plant and did not run it through its corporate office….
Kramer said the policy on political expression on the job is longstanding. The rule regarding the ability to express support for law enforcement has been revised.
“We have clarified our policy to make it clear associates can express support for law enforcement through apparel at Goodyear facilities,” Kramer wrote….
A message from Rich Kramer: By now, you are aware of a visual from our Topeka factory that has been circulating in the media. I want to personally clear the record on what you are seeing and hearing. pic.twitter.com/UqqFeFQn6t
— Goodyear (@goodyear) August 20, 2020
This statement appears to leave in place the allowance of Black Lives Matter, and disallowance of All Lives Matter and MAGA. If Goodyear provides clarification, I will update.
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Comments
It takes years to develop a reputation.
It takes just one incredibly stupid action to destroy it.
Goodyear is dead to me.
See also: http://ace.mu.nu/archives/389729.php
“Audio From Goodyear Training Session Leaks:
Leftwing Messaging Is Okay, Because Leftwing Political Agitation Isn’t Political”
Pretty much. Can you imagine what it must be like for any white employees there to hear their bosses tell them that their lives literally do not matter?
How could anyone work in an environment like that? Especially a factory one where you could quite easily get hurt or killed on the job, for people who just told you directly that your own life doesn’t matter to them?
Goodyear Tire has CREATED A HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT and is liable for any and all damages.
Yep.
Maybe not winnable, but the process is the punishment. Worse than the costs, the press, or the exposure as spineless nematodes, every single day, n every single thing they could try in their defense will alienate some folks, n enrage others. There’s no way out. Keep the attention on, n don’t let up.
Punch back twice as hard, as a renowm communitg organizer admonished his operativez n enforcers pre-election.
My grandfather’s philosophy: “If they punch you, punch back twice as hard. If they are slow learners and punch you again, punch back as often as you need to ensure they won’t punch you again.”
Can we send those worthless tires to the worthless Gov. of Maine to wear as a mask?
Maine Governor Orders Restaurant Staff
To Wear COVID-Visors Like Dog-Cones
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/maine-governor-orders-restaurant-staff-wear-covid-visors-dog-cones
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fbanner2.kisspng.com%2F20180408%2Fwbw%2Fkisspng-black-death-plague-doctor-costume-desktop-wallpape-doctor-who-5ac9fc0dbf2754.265739611523186701783.jpg&f=1&nofb=1
Same with Google/YouTube.
“YouTube has announced that it will be removing “content that contains ….information, the disclosure of which may interfere with democratic processes, such as elections and censuses.”
“For example, videos that contain …..information about a political candidate shared with the intent to interfere in an election,” adds the Google-owned video sharing platform….”
This by itself is an alarming assault on human communication and press freedom. If there is authentic information out there about either of the candidates who are up for the most powerful elected position on the planet, the world is entitled to know about it, regardless of how that information was acquired. Monopolistic tech oligarchs have no business barring us from learning about and discussing that information.
Immensely powerful people should not be permitted to have secrets from the public anyway…..”
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/how-we-could-wind-banned-discussing-october-surprise-social-media-election
If I were working in an environment like the one at Goodyear right now, I’d be updating my resume and searching for another job. Obviously, my life doesn’t matter to them because “Black Lives Matter” above everyone else.
Any bets as to how workplace pranks and practical jokers are handled? Especially when the perp is one of the Exalted Minority and the victim is white? “Aww, we was just funnin’” when the EM pushed the white into the side of a hot tire molding machine.
Since Goodyear is willing to promote black horseshit to the detriment of all other races, then they should be forbidden from having any employees who are not black. I have no doubt that a few years of that would do in Goodyear.
Goodyear Tire has a Death Wish.
I pray they get their wish.
One thing we learned for sure. GoodYear is run by idiots.
White idiots or black idiots?
Most likely, fat, ugly white womyn and colorless soy boys
Perfectly stated, Rusty. Goodyear is toast to me.
I’ve said this for a while now.
Companies that are not explicitly conservative turn liberal over time, because liberals infiltrate HR first, and when in place, they hire ONLY other liberals, while conservatives hire regardless of politics.
When they feel that they have control, they start pulling crap like this, and getting rid of any outspoken conservatives until only liberals or conservatives too scared to speak up work there.
I don’t think it is necessarily about HR. Don’t get me wrong, we all hate Toby. It is about one person getting their foot in the door and getting in the position to start hiring what they see in the mirror or what they want to see in bed. At my company we have entire departments that have zero diversity within them. We have our departments for this sexuality, or that nationality or skin color. We have one department run by a middle aged woman that has nothing but attractive mid 20s men. I’ve worked at places where this is reversed where male managers high five each other after interviewing an attractive mid 20s woman. I will say that at my current company I had our HR rep (since departed) walk by our department, say “there are too many white men here”, and walk off. I doubt she said anything similar to any other homogeneous department.
“… getting in the position to start hiring what they see in the mirror or what they want to see in bed.”
So often true.
One exception I encountered, at an old-school mfg company, sr mgrs who hired too comely an assistant or staffer got shuffled aside. In that ego culture of all encompassing, rational, ruthless competitive competence, hiring for yummieness was taking yr eye off the ball.
More often I’ve seen it considered a perk, even of being literally anyone in a cool-kid company. The lamented “brogrammer’ culture of peak webby peak is just one variation.
Robert Conquest’s 2nd Law of Politics
2) Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
I never thought I would see the day when an employee [rightfully] cannot wear a BLM mask while working at Whole Foods in Cambridge, MA but it’s just fine to wear one working for Goodyear.
Firestone. “Time to retire.”
Goodyear needs to be Fisked!
How hard is it to just declare that Goodyear does not get involved in political issues. They just make and sell tires.
But everyone acts like they have a responsibility to use their “platforms” to lecture everyone else about politics. And there is only one acceptable opinion.
Exactly
Time to Burn those Platforms…….
Blame HR. And the Marxist colleges that trained them.
But Goodyear’s hapless CEO apparently think BLM is not political.
Double standards just like at Twitter, Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc.
What is stupid is it is ok to wear BLM. BLM does not mean crap to diversity. If I ask WHAT DOES BLM stand for, I bet I can not get a good answer.
#BabyLivesMatter, more controversial than #BlueLivesMatter, #BrownLivesMatter, #alBinoLivesMatter.
I have bought GoodYear tires for decades. No longer. Cooper for me
You will get a better tire, especially if its for a truck.
I’ve been running Cooper tires on my personal and company vehicles for years.
Yes..us as well..2 SUV’s and a truck in this house will not have Goodyears on them next time around. Stupid has consequences.
The corporate wokesters should probably stop and figure out who their customers are before proceeding with this level of stupidity. If a ladies clothing store goes.all in for metoo that’s probably ok.
On the other hand if a sporting goods store suddenly refuses to offer the most popular, best-selling type of rifle and the demonize the purchaser that is …. my bad dicks already did that.
SJWs don’t care about market research. They believe in pushing their agenda on any platform they can get control of, and bully anyone in the company who objects into silence.
I’ll bet there are a lot of people in Goodyear who hate this, including people in management, and are glad it went viral because it may force change
Because of the wokeness of many of America’s business leaders business leaders, I find myself increasingly buying brands owned by foreign companies. In a world of multi-national corporations, does it really matter?
The HR departments that make these policies are a hive of scum and villainy, i mean are filled with Democratic agitators.
It’s a asymmetrical warfare on all these issues. Keep fighting back. This is a superficial concession.
I bet planned parenthood is an apolitical campaigner for woman’s rights, pro-lifers are far right political extremists who must be banned.
Many of these moronic corporations view a degree in Grievance Studies to be equivalent to some sort of degree in human resources. The only degree one needs in human resources is in the actual business of the company. You build widgets, get a guy who ran the widget factory to hire newbies. He knows what is needed in an employee.
maybe the goodyear dealers in Portland and Seattle can send of some old goodyears to burn
This was a racist policy designed to elevate blacks to a superior position in the work place, allowing blacks to utilize employee rules to terrorize others. It was an intentional, divisive policy purposely put in place by a diversity office imbued with hatred for corporate America and whites in particular. The oblivious upper management thought they were implementing a unifying policy when in fact they adopted one of chaos, patently racist and clearly favoring one race over that of whites and Asians. Go Woke, Go Broke.
Do these idiots not see it?
That sounds like an intro to a lawsuit
Homosexual, bisexual, neogender is transgender spectrum (“Rainbow” exclusive of black, brown, and featuring the shredded remains of white) pride.
Some, Select Black Lives Matter is diversity dogma of the Progressive Church with its Twilight faith, and Pro-Choice quasi-religion.
What extraordinary bigotry, political congruence (“=”). That said, principles matter. #HateLovesAbortion
nor was it part of a diversity training class”
Diversity dogma is a class-based taxonomic system, process, and belief based on low-information attributes (e.g. skin, sex) denies individual dignity, individual conscience, and normalizes affirmative discrimination, color quotas, and color blocs.
Why is it so hard to admit and believe, CEO Kramer, that the reason 1) you’re in your job and 2) the company exists at all is simply this: to extend the quality and life, ie, the performance of the vehicle tires you produce at the lowest, economically reasonable and marketably competitive price, and which tires happen to be black in color.
Anything else doesn’t really matter to your customers, the consuming public.
Keep it simple, stupid.
The response could have been “this slide was from a presentation prepared outside the company. Our policy is that NO political messaging is allowed on the shop floor, of any kind, for any reason.Thank you for bringing this to our attention.”
Doubling down on stupid… Somehow I don’t think this is going to end well for them.
“outside the company” is the lamest of excuses. It was mandatoraly presented to Goodyear employees
It wouldn’t matter if it was prepared outside the company. Goodyear still paid for it and approved it.
Each time they rephrase it they just seem stupider and stupider. Is it possible that they honestly don’t understand?
Not possible, Mil, but I suspect likely; that’s why I called GY’s leadership mentality “freakin’ bubbled” — disconnected from signal-sending, cultural beings and entities (eg, us, no insignificant part of the whole), and maybe a microcosm of other woke, and thus, in our view, dysfunctionally led American corporations, in general.
That is my take. Fat cats with no sense of community, news, etc. Bubble people. I wonder how in tune they are with their own product?
On a more serious note than my previous post, I hope the Corporate management of Goodyear can come to understand and admit their efforts are misguided. Their policy is disdainful of their customers and employees.
I feel for the local Goodyear Tire center franchisee. Imagine buying the franchise for a damn tire store that does basic auto maintenance and getting rolled up into some controversy because some some jacklegs at corporate level pushed out this discriminatory policy.
It isn’t the fault of the local franchise but these guys will pay the price. Folks will redirect their tire rotations, time up, oil change etc to another store. If Goodyear doesn’t back off their still discriminatory woke stance many will be buying Cooper or Firestone when the time comes. That isn’t including fleet sales to PD, state government, federal government.
Goodyear management needs to admit their mistakes, apologize to their employees and customers and rescind their discriminatory policies. Sooner rather than later. The smell gets worse with age.
The rot spreads. Goodyear is the name of this rotten fish and, as nature rules, the rot originates anew in its head, or leadership. But the proximate source of the spreading rot is political, especially the result of doings by a past, prime CEO.
I blame Obama and his mischievous, nefarious ilk for the unserious, devious, and malicious manner in which he claimed, as leading journalists in earlier times were known, to rake the muck, to echo an old progressive phrase, but just couldn’t — and still can’t — let go of his implement and deed. He abused good and necessary cultural institutions while he tilled the common soil in the hope of reaping renewed, interracial discord for very evil, unconstitutional, anti-American purposes.
By the way, speaking of muckraking, read here, if you have the time for a good drink or two, a famous, pro-good-government essay by one of the early, great Progressives — when its meaning and intent were much less pernicious to our souls and our society — President Teddy Roosevelt.
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/teddyrooseveltmuckrake.htm
He was once quoted as saying that he “always believed that wise progressivism and wise conservatism go hand in hand”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism
It’s about what Obama, and too many others in government today, seriously lack. It focuses, I think, on a sensible gravitas, possibly the plumb of character. As progressives go, Roosevelt was, it seems obvious from the above quote, in a class by himself.
(Substantially the same as above, with minor modifications:)
Why is it so hard to admit, believe, and advance the simple truth, CEO Kramer?
You’re in your job to assure that the company exists simply to extend the quality and life, ie, the performance of the vehicle tires you produce at the lowest possible, economically reasonable and marketably competitive price; and the color of the tires you produce just happen to be black.
Anything else doesn’t really matter to your customers, the consuming public.
Keep it simple, stupid.
Still won’t buy Gillette.
Snow tire season is just around the corner.
Andy,
Try Schick razors: they kick ass over Gillette, and they’re much less expensive. Gillette’s gel shaving cream is also overpriced, and is no better than Barbasol and the like, which are less money.
It’s bad enough for be the subject of a boycott, but when people boycotting try alternate products and you find out you’ve been robbing them, the boycott is forever.
Even Dollar General disposable razors (about 10 for a $10) beat Gillette.
$1.00
Be a human being, and make a compromise: buy Gillette tires and Goodyear razors.
Harry’s and Costco Kirkland are made by Schick in its German factory.
Goodyear needs to be punished and made an example of.
No Goodyear products till 2025. If you see the Goodyear ‘michelle obama’ flying overhead, boo it.
I’d like the see people wear “To Hell with the Bureau of Land Management” tee-shirts.
Or, “I’m old enough to remember when PC meant Printed Circuit”.
I am guessing that all fire and police purchases of tires will not be Good Year soon. Can’t Fix Stupid!
There is no real concession here. Forbidding “all lives matter” is unacceptable. They fear loss of Police contracts. Their indulgence of BLM is inexcusable. This is outrageous and warrants a boycott with potential effect on the thousands of other companies and institutions doing the same thing as Goodyear.
The deserve many and massive mult-million dollar lawsuits.
Their shareholders should be lining up to wipe out the criminal management.
Corporate Management is ONLY the HIRED HELP like the cleaning lady AFTER ALL.
If you have gone All Lives Matter is political, you have gone political.
To late and a dollar short. We know how Goodyear feels regardless of what they allow now. I guess all lives, whites lives still don’t matter to them. I doubt this will change many negative feelings toward Goodyear. Oh and the comment that “The unidentified speaker says the rules were created to make a better work environment” is crap It will make a very intolerant work environment for any right thinking employee.
Police lives REALLY matter. That’d be a good shirt.
These idiot corporations need to feel the pain of exclusion.
Like any petty criminal they are only sorry they got caught.
We need to stop buying from these people and see how far they go with NPR listeners as their customer base.
The Goodyear CEO should resign; he is too stupid to realize that his poor attempts at “clarification” are inadequate. BLM, a marxist political group is still okay in his eyes. white lives and all lives matter is still verboten. Blue lives matter is still in corporate limbo. He is a fool.
And, he is likely a coward.
Meanwhile, Tirerack.com is advertising Michelin tires in pop up ads wherever this story plays. The Goodyear CEO is too stupid to lead; he should resign.
Goodyear’s next quarter’s sales numbers will be abysmal. Goodyear will lose the loyalty of many formerly repeat customers.
Made in America Michelins will get a boost; as will other non-woke tire manufacturers like Cooper, Bridgestone/Firestone, Sumitomo, Kumho, Pirelli.
The Goodyear retail outlet “Just Tires” will be hurt as will Goodyear brands Dunlop and Kelly-Springfield.
People will note well that at the same time that Goodyear is closing its Gasden, Alabama plant, Goodyear is opening a plant in Red China.
Why is pervert lobby attire not banned if all other forms of political and cultural expressions are banned? The answer is obvious, the superficial diversity fetishists will always give special priveleges to the pervert lobby.
Anyone know who the supplier is for the U.S.A. military’s tires?
I’d like for an employee to wear a “Love Trumps Hate” hat and see if anybody calls him on it. I know which side of that bet I’m taking. Maybe James O’Keefe could arrange that.
If you were an employee, would it really matter if they backtracked on Blue Lives Matter? You already know that management doesn’t approve of that. If you showed support, would you trust them not let it negatively affect your job?
My Canyon came with goodyear wranglers (or wronglers you decide), when I buy Cooper tires to replace the goodyear tires (who incidentally killed themselves unlike jeffrey epstein) I will let goodyear know they lost a sale because of their wokeness.
I agree with Rush Limbaugh, these idiots probably believe twitter is the American voice. It isn’t.
How long has it been since Target had their Transgender Bathroom fiasco… 4 years? One would think that should be enough time for even the most retarded CEO to learn that he gets paid for taking care of the business and the employees in a responsible, profitable manner and NOT for sitting around playing Social, Justice Warrior games!
I bought Cooper tires last year and like them, so I’m not in the market for tires right now, but believe me, I have a good memory and I let people know what I think!
“Oops!” doesn’t cut it. Neither does the CYA non-apology. If ALL LIVES do not matter, then none do.