Five hundred trade unionists and community members marched through the very small town of Street, in Somerset, on 13 November, to support Clarks warehouse workers’ ongoing, all-out strike against being “fired and rehired”. Workers’ Liberty members and supporters from London and Bristol joined the march.
To donate to the strike fund: Community, account 34042733, 60-83-01. Reference: Clarks strike pay. Messages of support to drfrancois@community-tu.org
The company that now owns Clarks, LionRock Capital, is based in Hong Kong and controlled by a billionaire capitalist close to the Chinese government. Hong Kong activists in the UK have issued a statement supporting the workers.
Community has promoted the idea that this attack is a betrayal of Clarks’ traditional “Quaker” values.
But as local trades council secretary and longstanding CWU militant Dave Chapple reminded the audience at the rally on the 13th, this is the same kind of struggle as when workers forced the then family-owned Clarks to recognise their union in the 1880s.
