Mobilizing Resistance: The Burberry Workers' Campaign against Factory Closure

Abstract

This paper draws on mobilization theory, frame analysis and community characteristics to explore a high-profile campaign by a largely female workforce against the closure of a clothing plant owned by the international fashion house, Burberry. It analyses the particular factors associated with their mobilization and examines the workforce's propensity to act collectively, having exhibited little indication of a clear definition of its collective interests in the past. The paper highlights the central importance of perceived substantive and procedural injustice among the workforce, together with the ways in which geographic location and community characteristics reinforced their willingness to fight the closure decision. The paper concludes by considering the wider implications of this campaign for mobilization theory.