Bye Bye Burberry
Friday, January 12, 2007

And so, in the end, Burberry checked-out of the Rhondda with a whimper, catching even its would-be saviour by surprise.

Is the move to China (at the cost of 300 jobs) in breach of their corporate responsibility code? Here's what they say on their website:

For Burberry, corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) involves considering those social, environmental and ethical issues that if managed improperly could pose a threat to the Group’s assets, reputation and the Burberry brand.

Probably not - it all revolves around brand recognition and profit margins in any case.

The closure of Burberry in the Rhondda is the rational extension of the socio-economic ball game we play here in Britain.

As a colleague said to me yesterday, '300 jobs lost to pay one Chief Executive's salary'.

Labels: , , ,

posted by Blamerbell @ 10:07 am,

7 Comments:

At 1:22 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe not. If you click on the word surprise you have highlighted, it turns out it wasn't a surprise.

 
At 1:27 pm, Blogger Blamerbell said...

There aint half a lot of 'anonymous' comments on this site.

Anyway, are you saying Mr Andrews knew they would make that annoucement before the phone call from Red Dragon?

 
At 2:03 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Surely the point is that Burberry tried to slip out the confirmation of the date they'd already mentioned in November, trying to bypass the bulk of the Welsh media.

Or perhaps you approve of that kind of corporate behaviour?

 
At 3:24 pm, Blogger Huw Thomas said...

anonymous - Seeing as Red Dragon are part of the GCap Media network, whose combined audience of its Welsh stations equals BBC Radio Wales' coverage (and their FM stations rate higher listenership than BBC RW in each area), then I doubt it's a case of bypassing the bulk of the Welsh media.

If you tell BBC Wales, GCap or PA Wales, you're story's going to get out.

 
At 5:56 pm, Blogger Blamerbell said...

Sounds like chanticleer is a 'radio man'...

 
At 8:18 pm, Blogger Professor Dylan Jones-Evans said...

The problem for Wales is that the boards of these companies cleraly care little for the opinions of the First Minister, his cabinet or any of his civil servants, so are they going to take any notice of the campaign by the workers and their local representatives?

During the last 12 months we have seen thousands of jobs lost from multinationals who have, quite frankly, given up on Wales once the grants dried up.

To find that the Assembly Government spent over £30 million on grants last year to support large non-Welsh firms is scandalous, especially when most of these firms are making vast profits, and is merely storing up trouble for the future when the grant tap is turned off.

We have a skilled, flexible and loyal workforce in the Rhondda and elsewhere in Wales - perhaps we ought to be selling this a bit more to potential investors instead of offering the usual 'bung' to come here.

Finally, to be completely apolitical, the efforts of all who tried to stop Burberry's closure of the Rhondda site is to be throughly applauded.

Unfortunately, Burberry's had already made their decision months ago and nothing - not even the combined protests of Bryn,Rhys, Emma and Ioan - was going to change their minds over this matter.

 
At 10:24 pm, Blogger Blamerbell said...

Interesting post, Dylan.

But would the Tories really have done it any differently?

"Unfortunately, Burberry's had already made their decision months ago and nothing - not even the combined protests of Bryn,Rhys, Emma and Ioan - was going to change their minds over this matter."

I concur.

 

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