All Organisations subcategories:
Committee for a Workers International
Nationalist and National Liberation
Pro capitalist and Imperialist
Left and radical keywords:
International Socialist Resistance (54)
Revolutionary Communist League (1)
Socialist Peoples Party (Denmark) (1)
Green
Highlight keywords |
Print this article
Search site for keywords: Retail - Nationalise - Jobs - Workers - Green - Usdaw - Pension - Pensions
Nationalise BHS to save 11,000 jobs
BHS in Leeds, photo by Mtaylor848 (Creative Commons) (Click to enlarge)
Iain Dalton, Shop workers' union Usdaw conference delegate (personal capacity)
Department store BHS is going into administration. The news on 24 April will have shocked many, not least the 11,000 staff.
Speaking to the Socialist Party's Isai Priya, one worker was "scared and uncertain on the future," saying "I feel like I am not in control."
Retail mogul Philip Green, who owned BHS as part of his Arcadia group, sold it last year - for £1.
Bosses blame the company's large debts - £1.3 billion, including a £571 million pension fund deficit. But when Green bought the company in 2000, it had a £5 million surplus, rising to £12 million the following year.
Green has taken what the Financial Times calls "substantial dividends" over a number of years. He avoided tax on these by paying them to his wife, who lives in Monaco.
Superyacht
Additionally, he used BHS assets to back loans for other businesses within his group. Green recently bought a third superyacht.
And BHS paid over £25 million to its subsequent owners, Retail Acquisitions, ahead of going into administration.
Even under previous recovery plans, management was discussing closing up to 50 stores and attacking staff pensions. Now retail workers are once again expected to pay the costs of the bosses' mistakes.
If administrators, or a new buyer, attempt to shut stores down, workers should take a leaf from the book of workers in Ireland. Staff at Game and La Senza occupied their stores.
Multiple owners have proved incapable of running BHS as a going concern, using it to feather their nests instead.
The company should be nationalised, and run democratically by workers and consumers. That would save 11,000 jobs, and allow stores to respond to communities' household product needs.
Donate to the Socialist Party
Finance appeal
The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.
The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.
The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
- The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
- When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.
Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.
We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to donate to our Fighting Fund.
LATEST POSTS
12 May Stop Israeli state brutality
 |
9 May Post-election meetings
15 May Birmingham Socialist Party: How can we fight for socialist change and a new workers' party?
17 May Oxfordshire & Aylesbury Socialist Party: The role of the state
18 May Bristol North Socialist Party: Liverpool - history of socialist struggle
CONTACT US
Phone our national office on 020 8988 8777
Email: [email protected]
Locate your nearest Socialist Party branch Text your name and postcode to 07761 818 206
Regional Socialist Party organisers:
Eastern: 079 8202 1969
East Mids: 077 3797 8057
London: 075 4018 9052
North East: 078 4114 4890
North West 079 5437 6096
South West: 077 5979 6478
Southern: 078 3368 1910
Wales: 079 3539 1947
West Mids: 024 7655 5620
Yorkshire: 078 0983 9793
ABOUT US
ARCHIVE
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999