I’ve written
previously about the collapse of retailer BHS. This week, some of the
grisly details began to emerge, as a parliamentary select committee began
its investigations. Particularly striking was evidence given by former executives
about its owner Dominic Chappell. Chappell – a thrice bankrupt former racing
driver with no retail experience – bought BHS for £1 in in 2015. In the
hearing, former
finance consultant to BHS Michael Hitchcock called Chappell a Premier League
class liar with his fingers in the till whilst Darren Topp, the former CEO,
claimed that Chappell threatened
to kill him.
Next week, Sir
Philip Green, who, having
ransacked the business, sold it to Chappell is also due to appear before
parliament to answer questions about what happened to the pension fund. He is
facing pressure to make
good the fund’s £571M deficit and there are calls
for him to be stripped of his knighthood.
BHS is now
being wound down, with its 11,000 employees facing redundancy, because no buyer
could be found. Yet, according to Chappell, there was a willing buyer who was
dissuaded from the purchase by Green (something Green denies). This buyer was
Mike Ashley, who is now
to be called to give evidence about this.
By a strange
coincidence, Ashley – founder and owner of retailer Sports Direct – also
appeared before a parliamentary committee this week (despite attempts to avoid
doing so). Sports Direct stands accused of failing to pay staff the minimum
wage, and a litany of unpleasant practices with the effect that:
I suppose
there is some comfort to be drawn from the fact that these cases are being
investigated by parliament, and the increased power and activism of select
committees is, I think, a positive development. And, of course, there are
plenty of good and responsible employers.
Yet these
two stories taken together seem to disclose something about the dire state of
management practices in some and perhaps many parts of British businesses
today, and about the, let’s say, unappealing characters who lead those
businesses. And it’s not just in Britain. Last month Oxfam
reported that chicken farm workers in the US were being denied toilet breaks
and forced to wear nappies. This won’t come as a surprise to readers of my
book, where (p.133) I give the example of a Californian factory in which
workers were told to urinate in their clothes rather than take toilet breaks.
Indeed, the poultry workers are rather humanely treated by comparison: at least
they are allowed nappies.
The foundational study in Labour Process
Analysis from which (to simplify) grew Critical Management Studies, was Harry
Braverman’s (1974) Labor and Monopoly
Capital of which the subtitle was
‘the degradation of work in the twentieth century’. Half a century on and we
seem to be seeing degradation at work
as the defining feature of the labour process; an all too literal labour
process when women give birth in toilets to avoid losing their jobs.
Excellent piece, Chris. These horrors in the retail and food sectors are really shocking. My question would be whether they are the result of individual greedy rogues like Ashley, Green and Chappell, unhindered of course by unions or half-way effective legislation, or whether they are part of the enduring tendency of capitalism to oppress, degrade and exploit workers in pursuit of profit. What about other organizations that make huge profits without over-exploiting their employees?
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