Donald Trump losing the presidency of the United States spells bad news for Vince McMahon and WWE, and not just because his wife Linda is now out of a job, but because of the threat that former presidential candidate Andrew Yang dropped on McMahon several weeks ago.
Yang, who is a massive wrestling fan, warned McMahon that if Joe Biden becomes President of the United States, he will work to tackle WWE’s “corrupt labor practices” even if he has no seat in Biden’s cabinet.
The whole thing kicked off in early September when McMahon issued an e-mail to all WWE talent forcing them to stop engaging with third party services such as Cameo, Twitch, and YouTube. Since then, McMahon stayed true to his word and enforced his new unpopular rule late last month.
“If I’m not the Secretary of Labor I’m pretty confident I’ll have his or her number to talk about the ridiculous classification of WWE wrestlers as independent contractors while controlling their name and likeness for years, even for something as benign as Cameo,” Yang wrote on Twitter back then.
“Come on Vince – you’ve already deprived the folks breaking their backs for you of healthcare, security, recovery time, retirement benefits and fair treatment re: licenses and royalties. At least let them make a living off their own names. Many of them need it,” he continued.
Yang said that he grew up a wrestling fan and it was sad to see so many of his childhood heroes pass away early. “I’d feel better knowing that they and their families were being fairly treated – I look forward to doing what I can for the next generation of performers. I know how tough it is,” Yang wrote.
But before ending his thread, Yang fired a final warning to the WWE Chairman and CEO.
“Vince you’d better hope your old friend Donald wins because change is in the air and changes are long overdue where your corrupt labor practices are concerned. It would give me great pleasure. The people know,” he said.
