{"id":37124,"date":"2020-09-18T23:45:08","date_gmt":"2020-09-19T03:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/?p=37124"},"modified":"2023-12-14T12:57:09","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T17:57:09","slug":"goodyears-rough-ride-has-a-simple-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/ncppr\/2020\/09\/18\/goodyears-rough-ride-has-a-simple-solution\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodyear\u2019s Rough Ride Has a Simple Solution"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has hit a very bumpy patch of pavement. Caught trying to go woke, it is now on the defensive to avoid losing customers and going broke.<\/p>\n

\"\"In a Townhall commentary<\/a><\/strong>, Scott Shepard<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 deputy director of the National Center\u2019s Free Enterprise Project<\/a> <\/strong>(FEP) \u2013 maps out how the company can get itself on a road back to neutral.<\/p>\n

But Scott warns that Goodyear \u201chad better act quickly, clearly and loudly\u201d in order to retain its conservative and moderate customers \u2013 \u00a0presumably the most reliable customer base for the company\u2019s automotive products. All of this is necessary because, in a competitive marketplace, Goodyear\u2019s decision to endorse a political message has made it \u201cvulnerable to getting crushed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recent\u00a0reports<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0indicate that Goodyear was promoting a selective \u201czero tolerance\u201d dress code for workers in its Topeka factory. While allowing \u201cBlack Lives Matter\u201d (BLM) and pro-homosexual messages on clothing, it would not allow \u201cblue lives matter,\u201d \u201call lives matter\u201d or pro-Trump messages.<\/p>\n

After the company\u2019s initial denial<\/a><\/strong> was found to be less than truthful<\/a><\/strong> when both visual and audio evidence became available, the company issued a statement<\/a><\/strong> that employees \u201ccan express support for law enforcement through apparel at Goodyear facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Partisan clothing is still banned due to \u201ca longstanding corporate policy that asks associates to refrain from workplace expressions in support of any candidate or political party.\u201d Fair enough. A workplace should be politically neutral.<\/p>\n

While all of this is a good start, Scott writes that Goodyear \u201cmust do more\u201d to stay neutral:<\/p>\n

Only real, enforceable guarantees that Goodyear will not discriminate against its employees because of their views seem fit to end this controversy and allow the company to retain the vast swathe of disaffected customers who now look set quietly to buy their tires elsewhere.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Scott notes that the initial denial from the higher-ups at Goodyear was \u201ccrawling with weasel words,\u201d and that even the allowance for pro-police sentiment on workers\u2019 clothing still \u201caggressively misses the point.\u201d In the initial policy, the company took a stand that it has not clarified or denied:<\/p>\n

[T]he company seems to have determined that BLM, and everything that the organization and its leaders endorse, is neutral and to be celebrated, because it relates to \u201csocial justice or inequity or equity,\u201d while other opinions and positions \u2013 either opposing or simply incongruous \u2013 are so inflammatory as to require immediate dismissal\u2026<\/p>\n

But there is no way to declare BLM\u2019s and its allies\u2019 undeniably race-based and race-ranking theories to be inarguably neutral, beneficent policies so definitely in clear-eyed pursuit of \u201cjustice\u201d that they transcend politics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what\u2019s the existential threat to Goodyear? Scott points out that \u201cthe average tire buyer is not likely to think fondly of Goodyear\u2019s straight-up discrimination.\u201d And there is nothing that Goodyear makes that cannot be supplied by a competitor.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why this requires the kind of action that FEP has been advocating for years:<\/p>\n

What Goodyear must do now is to write real, enforceable viewpoint-discrimination protections into its employee hiring and retention policies. It must treat all employees, and all ideas that any of those employees espouse,\u00a0equally<\/em>. This doesn\u2019t mean that it must make Goodyear a political and philosophical free-for-all. It could ban all expressive garb. Or, for\u00a0all\u00a0<\/em>employees and all of their ideas, it could ban anything connected with candidates, parties and campaigns, but allow expression in support of ideas (which would include support for Black, Blue and All Lives Matter, and all sorts of other philosophical expressions) on an equal footing. There is a long spectrum of possibilities, so long as Goodyear makes no distinction between employees of different viewpoints.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For years, FEP has submitted shareholder proposals at publicly traded companies asking for them to institute employee protections against discrimination both for their political activity outside the workplace<\/a><\/strong> as well as their political beliefs<\/a><\/strong> in general.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for Goodyear to join companies such as Walmart, Pepsi and Walgreens in making sure employees are free from political persecution in the workplace.<\/p>\n

In this partisan environment \u2013 where executives have a responsibility to investors, employees and consumers \u2013 big business needs to move back to neutral when it comes to politics.<\/p>\n

To read all of Scott\u2019s commentary \u2013 \u201cHow to Turn Around Goodyear\u2019s Very Bad Week? Viewpoint Equality\u201d \u2013 at the Townhall website, click here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has hit a very bumpy patch of pavement. Caught trying to go woke, it is now on the defensive to avoid losing customers and going broke. In a Townhall commentary, Scott Shepard \u2013 deputy director of the National Center\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":37125,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,35,30,795],"tags":[77],"yoast_head":"\nGoodyear\u2019s Rough Ride Has a Simple Solution - The National Center<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/ncppr\/2020\/09\/18\/goodyears-rough-ride-has-a-simple-solution\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"David Almasi\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/ncppr\/2020\/09\/18\/goodyears-rough-ride-has-a-simple-solution\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/ncppr\/2020\/09\/18\/goodyears-rough-ride-has-a-simple-solution\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"David Almasi\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/#\/schema\/person\/986101645c65e8d001dc8de54beb396d\"},\"headline\":\"Goodyear\u2019s Rough Ride Has a Simple Solution\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-09-19T03:45:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-12-14T17:57:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/ncppr\/2020\/09\/18\/goodyears-rough-ride-has-a-simple-solution\/\"},\"wordCount\":735,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/ncppr\/2020\/09\/18\/goodyears-rough-ride-has-a-simple-solution\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/oldtires.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"ConservativeBlog.org\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Blog\",\"Featured\",\"Free Enterprise Project\",\"PEP\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/ncppr\/2020\/09\/18\/goodyears-rough-ride-has-a-simple-solution\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationalcenter.org\/ncppr\/2020\/09\/18\/goodyears-rough-ride-has-a-simple-solution\/\",\"name\":\"Goodyear\u2019s Rough Ride Has a Simple Solution - 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