Street Friends send letter about Clarks strike
'We write as Quakers from the Quaker Meeting of which two members set up the Clarks shoe business nearly two centuries.'
Street Meeting has sent a letter to the new CEO of LionRock Capital, the company which is now the majority shareholder in Clarks shoemakers, once a Quaker company. Friends have been working on the statement for weeks, Sheila James told the Friend. Meanwhile some local Quakers have been supporting the more than 100 warehouse workers who have been striking since October.
Street Quakers told the company that they welcome mediation, while continuing to oppose the tactics of ‘fire and rehire’. The letter says: ‘We were glad to read reports that the management of the Clarks company have agreed to bring in ACAS as mediators in the dispute at Clarks Warehouse. We have been following this dispute with sadness and dismay and appreciated the call from Frances O’Grady, TUC general secretary, for negotiations to begin.’
‘We acknowledge that global economics are complex, and that we do not have a detailed understanding of the economic reasons why the owners feel they should consider firing and rehiring some members of their workforce. However we write as Quakers from the Quaker Meeting of which two members set up the Clarks shoe business nearly two centuries ago, the company who for many years provided good working conditions for many generations of employees as well as providing services for the people of Street.’
The letter says that the Meeting supports the national campaign ‘Stop Fire and Rehire’ and strongly views this as ‘not an honest way to treat human beings’.
Tom Clark, a member of the Clark family, told the Friend that he was not ‘disgusted’ with the tactics as was reported in the Friend last month. The seventy-seven-year-old said: ‘Stating that I was disgusted [as union leader David Chapple had said] without context is unacceptable. I visited the strikers and talked for an hour about the situation. I was surprised that the new hourly rate on offer was so low even for long-term workers, but I understood that this is in the context of the Clarks’ business only just rescued from administration.’
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