Clarks Shoes to close

by Rohan Gowland

Ending months of speculation, Clarks Shoes in Adelaide has announced it 
will close in September/October this year, resulting in a total loss of 280 
jobs. The Australian shoe company, well known for years as makers of 
quality school shoes, is shifting its operations overseas.

Clarks has opened two new factories in Fiji in search of cheaper labour to 
make its shoes and then import them to Australia for sale.

Last year The Guardian reported that the workers at Clarks feared 
that the company was planning to sack its Australian workforce and take its 
operations off-shore.

Now it has done just that. It has issued its remaining workforce with 
redundancy notices, after revealing to the union in the Industrial 
Relations Commission on Friday, February 26, 1999, that it plans to close 
this year.

In November last year, the company sacked 80 workers in Melbourne and 
refused to give any guarantees about the future of its remaining staff. 
This was after the company had got the workers to agree to a lower 
redundancy package on the verbal assurances that it was not going to sack 
staff.

When Clarks sacked the 80 workers it insisted they take the lower 
redundancy package. Stephen Brennan, State Secretary of the Textile 
Clothing and Footwear Union, said at the time, "The company has reneged on 
its promise and is shafting everybody".

The union continued to press the company to upgrade the redundancy package 
for these 80 workers and any others facing the sack.

With the announcement of closure, the company finally agreed to an upgrade.

The original package was for three weeks pay for every year of service, 
uncapped. Clarks original offer provided for two weeks pay for every year 
of service, capped at a maximum of 52 weeks.

Clarks has now agreed to pay three weeks pay for every year of service, 
capped at 80 weeks, with extra payments for workers with more than 26 years 
employment with the company.

The deregulation of the textile/manufacturing industry has meant that 
tariff protections for Australian companies have been drastically reduced 
and these companies are struggling to compete with cheap overseas products.

Clarks' philosophy would appear to be "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em".

This is the "global free market" demanded by global financial institutions 
and the IMF and World Bank, and which the Australian Government has been 
only too willing to implement.

It demonstrates, too, how capitalism will leave workers high and dry.

Clarks, an Australian company, was built up by the labour of Australian 
workers over many years, but because the workers have no control over the 
company, and because profits are valued more highly than providing jobs for 
Australians, the workers are being dumped and those jobs lost forever.