  |
  |
 |
|
Contents Page Previous page 9 Next page 12 |
In October last year Leighton Andrews, Assembly Member for Rhondda, put a ‘Statement of Opinion’ to the Welsh Assembly deploring the closure, and Rhondda MP Chris Bryant put down an Early Day Motion at Westminster calling for Burberry to reconsider its decision.
In November 2006 the workers gained further publicity by staging a public protest outside the company’s prestige New Bond Street store in London. After he had seen which way the wind was blowing, muted criticism also came from Wales and Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain, who said such an ‘iconic British brand’ should not be made abroad.
The public relations battle continued in January 2007, when Burberry chairman John Peace and its chief executive Angela Ahrendts were called before the Commons Welsh Affairs Select Committee to give evidence to its inquiry on globalisation. This intervention followed criticism of Burberry bosses over the insensitivity of Christmas bonuses given to its Treorchy workers – a Burberry scarf and a £30 voucher to spend in its stores.
As well as this,Chris Bryant MP is urging Parliament to revoke Burberry’s Royal Warrant if the company proceeds with the closure, asserting that these should only go to British companies with a ‘fair employment policy’ (news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales, 3 January 007).
The issue has even gone to the European Parliament, MEP Jill Evans
saying, ‘I will be calling for corporate social responsibility to be made legally binding’ (South Wales Echo,9 January 007).
It is hard, however,to see these activities as other than cynical and meaningless gestures designed to placate disgruntled voters who are threatening to give Labour politicians in Wales a rough ride in May.
Burberry, for its part, has continuedto resolutely defend its ‘Britishness’,recently saying, ‘We are proud of our British heritage and we continue to design and manufacture in the UK’ (Observer, January).
The company has been keen to point out that after the closure it will still employ some ,000 workers at its Castleford and Rotherham factories in Yorkshire. Its third quarter results for 2006 (announced in January 2007), show, furthermore, that the high profile campaign against the brand has done little to dent sales and profitability. Chief executive Ahrendts said, ‘This outstanding quarter has been led by Burberry’s strong retail performance,’ prompting broker Merrill Lynch to hail the company as ‘one of the most promising stories in the sector’ leading to forecasts that Burberry revenue could exceed the £ bn mark by March 2009 (www.yorkshiretoday. co.uk, January). Burberry’s management appears to have correctly calculated that the bad publicity arising from the closure of its Treorchy factory would not arrest rising sales and profitability.
This is because Burberry is a brand that is aimed almost exclusively at
an elite of shoppers who mainly live in other countries. Its products are
outside the purchasing power of the average working class shopper and
the company has nothing to fear from a boycott by workers on the minimum wage, including those employed at its British factories.
The anticipated closure of the factory bringing the prospect of hardship, misery and trauma to Treorchy should of course be condemned, not only in South Wales but everywhere where workers daily suffer a similar fate. But however well meaning and sincere this condemnation, it is not enough, and cannot alter the mechanisms that make such events an accepted part of the economic system in which we live.
The workers at Burberry are engaged in a battle against capital, which like workers everywhere they ultimately cannot win. Employment is created only when there is an expectation that the goods produced
by workers will realise profit when sold on the market. Profit comes from the employment of working people and continued employment is dependent on continued profitability. Capital investment follows profitability, which means that if profitability cannot be maintained or the prospect of greater profit arises elsewhere, then the jobs upon which wage and salary earners are reliant will be terminated.
Like many other successful brand names, Burberry is looking to divest
itself of its traditional productive workforce and, through sub-contracting mechanisms, to have the actual production of its goods take place in Asian sweatshops. Although labour costs represents a minimal proportion of its total costs, every penny saved in the production of its goods means a penny added to profits and more importantly improves the company’s attractiveness for future investment.
In capitalism such decisions are inevitable because profit is more
important than people’s welfare. Decisions must be taken without
regard for the social consequences or for patriotism, which amounts to
a misguided notion that as a British registered company Burberry should
have some allegiance to the country where it was established or where
many of its employees live. The fact that Wales already suffers dire
poverty and that comparable jobs will be virtually impossible to find is of no consequence on the balance sheet, where the only consideration can be the bottom line. Companies have but one goal - the maximisation of profits for their shareholders.
The proposed Burberry closure shows how the interests of wage and salary earners are everywhere diametrically opposed to the interests of the owners of the means of production. But it also shows something about capitalist politicians.
The politicians do not condemn Burberry for exploiting the workforce
that is the source of the company’s rising profits. Nor do they condemn a
system that brings prosperity to the few by perpetuating the poverty and
insecurity of the many, by reducing wage and salary earners to conditions
not much better than slavery, and whose very wellbeing is dependent
on how successfully they can be exploited. Legally binding ‘corporate
social responsibility’ that would restrict a company’s ‘flexibility’ will not be allowed to happen because this would effect capital accumulation and lead directly to a migration of capital to other less restrictive and more profitable parts of the world.
The experiences of the Burberry workers have happened time and again
in the past and will be repeated time and again in the future, for as long as the working class believes that there is no alternative to the capitalist economic system. Working people everywhere would do well to reflect on the fact that capitalism cannot operate in any other way and is incapable of being reformed to do so.
Steve Trott
Contents Page Previous page 9 Next page 12 |