'Betrayed' Burberry staff clock-off for the last time

The combined voices of the Treorchy Male Voice Choir and the Cor Meibon Rhondda rang out in the damp, cold air as the workers processed out of the factory gates, pausing occasionally to turn back and wave goodbye. A Welsh flag hanging limp in the light drizzle, the procession began its sombre march into town. And as they walked away, a jazz band struck up one final tune of defiance.

It has been a long, bitter fight but yesterday the battle to save Burberry's factory at Treorchy in the Rhondda Valley was over. Television cameras from all over the world witnessed its last moments as more then 300 workers closed the gates for the last time, making clear their contempt for the company and its claims to quintessential Britishness. Manufacturers of the polo shirts once made at the south Wales plant are to be switched to China - and the slight has been keenly felt.

"Of course we feel betrayed,'' said Lisa Hazell. "I've not been able to think about anything else for months. We expected the factory always to be there. It was making a profit. The bottom has fallen out of our lives.''

Her husband Dean, 36, was a maintenance worker at the factory: "It's been very much a family thing, my mother, father and aunty worked there. We just feel shattered.''

The company's attention to geographical detail has always been suspect in the eyes of the Welsh workers - the shirts were sold with a "made in England'' label. But its decision to export jobs to China was the final straw - not only for the local people but for the glittering array of celebrities that took up their cause with somewhat surprising gusto.

The Oscar-winning actor Emma Thompson has delivered perhaps the most damning verdict on the company. "Burberry should not be making this move it will brand itself as greedy, unethical and - perhaps most importantly for the profile of the company - inauthentic,'' she said, accusing the company of a "bastardisation of the brand'' and the betrayal of the workforce.

Mr Hazell is undergoing retraining in order to seek work in a region which has never recovered from the pit closures in the 1980s. The GMB union and Leighton Andrews, Welsh Assembly member for the area, have managed to salvage something from the wreckage, largely through seeking support of celebrities for their campaign to keep the plant open.

Apart from Emma Thompson, campaigners enlisted the help of Ioan Gruffudd, the new "face of Burberry''; Sir Tom Jones; the Notting Hill star Rhys Ifans; Sir Alex Ferguson and the opera singer Bryn Terfel. The Prince of Wales contacted the Government to see if he could help.

Collectively they delayed the factory's closure and won a £1.5m donation from the company for community projects. Burberry has also agreed to consider providing the factory with work in the future, a promise secured by Mohammed Fayed of Harrods. The workers also received enhanced redundancy payments.

At a rally at the Parc and Dare Theatre at Treorchy, Chris Bryant, MP for the Rhondda, said the Burberry employees should be proud of their achievements. "They didn't think they would have to worry about some poor people in Wales. But how wrong could they get.'' He said any other company with a British brand would now think "very hard'' before switching manufacturing abroad.

Leighton Andrews told the rally: "I believe Burberry have made a big mistake. If they want to be seen as a British company, they have to keep manufacturing jobs in Britain. This will come back to haunt them and it will hit them where it hurts the most, in the profits.''

Mervyn Burnett, a senior GMB official, said his union was still pursuing the company over the pay and conditions of the Chinese workers. He said that no British company could guarantee that child labour would not be used. He said that while Treorchy produced polo shirts for £11, the two Chinese plants could turn them out for £4. "How can we compete with that?'' he asked.

"The factory was making a profit, but it wasn't enough for them. It's simply corporate greed. My members feel anger and bitterness. They feel betrayed. People have to learn there is a price to be paid for British goods.''

A spokesman for Burberry said the company did not employ anyone under the 16 and that there were regular "third party audits'' to ensure the rule was obeyed. He said the company retained a "strong manufacturing capability'' in Britain including two factories in Yorkshire and that Burberry clothing was 100 per cent designed in the UK.