President Trump on Wednesday asked consumers to sniff Goodyear tires, claiming that the company has banned hats with its campaign phrase “Make America Great Again,” as MAGA.
In a White House press release on Wednesday, Mr Trump said he was “not happy” with Goodyear. “What they’re doing is playing politics,” Mr. Trump said. “And the funny thing is, the people who work for Goodyear, I can guarantee you that I’ve doing very good research with all those great workers in Goodyear.”
Mr. Trump went on to insist “there is something very wrong at the top” with Goodyear. “What the radical left is doing is making it impossible for people to do business if they are Republicans or if they are conservatives,” he said. Trump, and compared the situation with Protestants in Portland.
Mr. Trump also proposed to change the tires on the Secret Service cars in which he travels.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump tweeted “Get better tires for much less!” He wrote that he took a page from “Radical Left Democrats.” He added, “Two can play the same game, and we need to start playing it now!”
Mr Trump’s tweet comes after a report by WIBW-TV in Topeka, Kansas, that some employees at a Goodyear factory in the city were told that the company had “zero tolerance” for wearing clothes with political messages. According to reports, those messages include MAGA clothing, like all other clothing with political themes, as well as phrases such as “All Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter.”
According to a training slide posted by the station, the company said some slogans were acceptable, including “Black Lives Matter” and messages about LGBT pride.
Goodyear released one on Wednesday statement states that the company “has always supported equality and law enforcement and will continue to do so.” The statement noted that the image in question did not come from Goodyear’s headquarters and “was not part of a class for diversity training”, while reiterating its ban on political content in the workplace.
While Americans tend to focus on their First Amendment rights to exercise free speech, companies in general are more intent on enforcing workplace rules and protecting their brand image, said Cheryl Sabnis, a partner at law firm King & Spalding.
“When things like political speech come up in the workplace, it can be distracting, yet well-intentioned,” Sabnis said. At the same time, they added, workers should be aware that their behavior outside the workplace can affect their jobs, given that mobile phones with cameras allow a comment or behavior to go viral and resonate with the employer.
“At the end of the day, individuals get to decide how they want to present themselves,” she said. “At the same time, employers get to decide what they believe can be in line with a collaborative culture of workplaces and what can be in line with their brand.”
Sabnis added, “It’s about distracting from the work of the day – it’s not about which side you are on.”
It is not the first time that Mr. Trump companies are calling for what he has cast as their bias against him. He has threatened and complained about a number of companies, including Twitter, Toyota en Amazon.
At the same time, experts say that customers are increasingly motivated to buy from companies that conform to their personal beliefs. The consulting firm Accenture recently found that nearly two-thirds of Americans say their purchasing behavior fluctuates due to such issues.
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