Kanye Faces Backlash Over Announcement He Is Moving Operations to Solid-Red Wyoming
Millionaire musician and businessman Kanye West has taken no shortage of news and social media abuse over the last decade for everything from feuding with fellow celebrities to supporting President Donald Trump to even his new-found Christian faith.
Yet at the outset of a new decade, West has somehow managed to emerge once again as the subject of an even more ridiculous public controversy — one centered around his desire to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States.
According to Complex magazine, West acknowledged in an October appearance on Beats 1 Radio that he intends to move the production of Yeezy — a billion-dollar apparel brand created in partnership with German sportswear company Adidas — stateside within the next two years.
The announcement came soon after West made the decision to move Yeezy headquarters out from Calabasas, California, to one of two multi-million-dollar ranches near Cody, Wyoming, in order to avoid regulatory pressure.
“We’re gonna’ bring them back to the States,” West told Zane Lowe at the time. “For me, as a founder, it’s really important to bring these jobs back to America.”
Kanye West is preparing to build a Yeezy prototype Lab in Cody, Wyoming: https://t.co/81EFHhfWaU pic.twitter.com/MH10Te5dD7
— Complex Sneakers (@ComplexSneakers) December 17, 2019
Kanye West is moving his Yeezys factory to Wyoming which will obviously create American jobs…and there are actually people upset that this will “hurt” foreign sweatshops.
Some people just need to go to hell and never come back.https://t.co/gs2wR97V9D
— Mindy Robinson ?? (@iheartmindy) January 18, 2020
And with Cody city planning and zoning board members reviewing site plans in December for a production facility known as the Adidas Yeezy Cody Sample Lab, according to local media, it would seem actions are already being taken to make that dream a reality.
Of course, however, the idea of bringing potentially thousands of manufacturing jobs to a heartland community of less than 10,000 — and West’s reported goal of partnering with second-chance prison reform programs to staff the site — was apparently too compassionate toward American citizens.
The decision may reek of opportunity for West and the American worker, the Daily Mail reported, but it “could spell disaster” for Asia’s laborers and manufacturing base.
At least, that is what those at a massive, global humanitarian NGO network known as the Clean Clothes Campaign are arguing.
That’s right. According to the heroic left-wing humanitarians at the CCC, American business people simply do not understand the fact that decisions like the one West is about to make deprive laborers in the developing world of “decent work.”
“Ultimately, sourcing practices should ensure that workers have decent work, meaning labor standards are respected and employment is stable and secure,” the organization’s campaign and outreach director Christie Miedema told the Daily Mail.
“If a company, such as Adidas, pulls out production of a factory, whether to find an even cheaper production location or to relocate out of political or sustainability reasons,” Miedema continued, “it is of utmost importance that it does so in a way that does not put the workers at risk of losing their livelihood.
“Buyers such as Adidas should take concrete measures to mitigate and minimize the damage to workers and their communities when a workplace does close, or a significant buyer decides to relocate,” she added. “That includes fair severance payments for workers, possible re-employment at other suppliers and a transparent, timely process for a closure of a contract, instead of a unilateral decision by the brand.”
What Miedema fails to mention, however, is the fact that Adidas’ laborers in East Asia work in terrible conditions for wages as low as $3 per day, according to the outlet.
Imagine.
An anti-capitalist humanitarian that would advocate for American businesses to leave Americans unemployed and continue operating sweatshops because it would be better than leaving foreign laborers unemployed.
A more convoluted argument I cannot fathom.
Of course, chances are these fools are bending over backwards to make this argument because West just so happens to sound like another popular American figure intent on bringing jobs back to the U.S.
Seems the America-first rhetoric that has taken root in Washington these last few years is contagious — and it has the globalist left doing Olympic levels of mental gymnastics.
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