So I finally got around to listening to Talk is Jericho with Andrew Yang. Really good interview, but he talked a lot about WWE's contracts and now that we have Biden as president, it seems relevant to bring up what he said now!
First off, Yang is currently on Biden's campaign. So he knows everyone he needs to in order to make change happen.
Yang says he feels entirely confident that he'll get change for people in WWE.
WWE talent sent him multiple contracts because they were sick of how they're treated.
Yang talks about how he understands why people sign these predatory contracts; because they have no other options to be at the top of the industry.
It's difficult to bring cases against companies for misclassification of employees because they normally need someone to step up and talk about how they were mistreated, which puts their career at jeopardy.
HOWEVER, Yang also said that he has multiple people willing to testify either in the company or recent ex-employees willing to speak out about it because they all understand it's wrong. He said one superstar "has been there for so long" that he will be willing to speak out "Because he's been there for so long there's literally nothing they can do to me at this point." (My guess is Ziggler tbh)
He also mentioned people talk about feeling like they're being treated fairly in AEW as opposed to WWE. Jericho discussed about how all travel and lodging and everything is figured out and paid for.
Yang talks about how he can see why AEW treats their wrestlers differently, because Tony Khan comes from a football background so they treat them like they're football players. WWE has always treated their employees like this, so he understands them not wanting to change.
Yang estimates that WWE has saved hundreds of millions of dollars for classifying wrestlers as independent contractors.
He also states that this can go two ways: 1) WWE can play ball and make the changes and treat wrestlers like employees rather than independent contractors and work with them to make it a smooth transition; or 2) WWE can be drug through it, oppose it, and go kicking and screaming during the process, and then they would all but show the WWE employees that they are actively fighting from letting them be treated fairly and prove they don't care about them at all, which is a bad look.
He outright says he's absolutely going to make this happen and make it better for wrestlers in WWE. There is no question.
From the way he was talking, he really does feel beyond confident that he'll be able to follow through on this. Thanks Andrew Yang!
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