Keep Burberry British

Harrod's next for Treorchy?

There has been widespread coverage of the Burberry workers' meeting at Harrod's yesterday. Here's BBC Wales; here's the Independent; the Guardian, the Western Mail and the South Wales Echo had it too.

Campaign successes

The BBC, ITV and Sky News have all covered the announcement of the additional money for the workers in the form of the loyalty bonus, and the Community Trust Fund for the Rhondda.

The full statement by the GMB and local politicians runs:

Throughout this campaign we have criticised Burberry for their unreasonable attitude towards the workers and the local community that has supported the factory over the years.

We are pleased therefore, that as a direct result of the GMB-led campaign, Burberry have made the offer of a special loyalty bonus to the workers, which our members recognised at a mass meeting yesterday as a significant improvement. But we still argue that the company should keep the factory open.

Burberry has offered to provide an ongoing contract to any realistic new venture. We will hold Burberry to this and there will be further discussions about it.

The offer on the table now amounts to a multimillion pound improvement on what was originally offered in September.

We welcome Burberry’s agreement – as a direct result of the campaign in which we have been proud to take part – to provide £150,000 a year for ten years for a special Trust Fund for the Rhondda. We look forward to making sure that it makes a real difference to people’s lives in the Rhondda. This is a unique achievement by a campaign of this kind.

This campaign has secured significant additional benefits for the workers and the community. The campaign has secured a total of an extra four months life for the factory so far. The campaign has secured an enhanced redundancy offer and an exceptional loyalty bonus for staff. The campaign has secured £1.5 million for a special Rhondda Trust.

We will never accept the business or moral case for the closure of this factory and we will continue to argue for its continuation.

Select Committee round-up

Burberry executives conceded that the campaign had had an effect at the Select Committee hearing in Parliamenat yesterday.

Here's the Western Mail story. Here's the BBC. Here's the Guardian.

Other stories can be found here.

Burberry can't escape

Even at the Milan Fashion show, Burberry can't escape the campaign.

CNN

CNN's coverage can be found here by clicking on the video tag and seaching for Burberry.

More coverage

We are now aware of coverage in Germany, Austria, Canada, Taiwan, Romania, Moldova, the Netherlands in addition to other countries we have already mentioned.

Thanks for all the offers of help with the Japanese translation, by the way. More on this soon.

Global Coverage

Yesterday's demonstrations have been covered around the world. The Financial Times article today has been syndicated in a number of places including MSNBC. There is coverage in Ireland, India, New Zealand, Greece, the USA amongst items we have spotted. Financial and trade press stories have included Retail Week, just-style.com, Forbes,  Business Week,Brand Republic, Polo Shirts News and many others. Agencies such as PA, AP, UPI and AFX have taken the story all over the globe.

The BBC story has some international coverage too.

Stop Burberry Breaking our Hearts

News coverage of the international demonstrations against Burberry today started in Ireland at the weekend, then Australia. Interviews for French media were done yesterday. The Guardian, Mirror and Western Mail today both mention Ben Elton joining the campaign. The Financial Times carries a story about the protests as does the Daily Post. It is also running on the BBC, Sky and on RTE in Ireland.

Protests take place at the following UK time equivalents:

London 10.30am

Paris 11.30am

Cardiff 12.30pm

Chicago 5.30pm

New York 6pm

Las Vegas 10.30pm

Protest details including venues and local times are on the GMB site.

Anyone speak Japanese and support us?

We are looking for a Japanese translator for this website. We have had a lot of media coverage in Japan already, but as it is one of Burberry’s biggest markets, we want our message to be more widely understood in the country.

We had someone lined up to translate key elements of the website into Japanese, but he has fallen ill. So we are looking for unpaid assistance from anyone who can help us with a translation.

Stop Burberry Breaking our Hearts

Details of the GMB-organised protests in London, Paris, New York, Chicago, Las Vegas and Strasbourg are set out in the union's press release here.

You can download the leaflet here. A French version is also available.

Members of the National Assembly for Wales will also be signing a Valentine's Card at the National Assembly building in Cardiff.