Plea to M&S over factory closure

The factory is due to close in October 2003

High street giant Marks and Spencer (M&S) has been urged to rethink a decision to have an exclusive range of clothes made abroad to cut costs.

The company's decision to source work abroad means almost 350 textile jobs in County Durham are to be lost.

The Sara Lee Courtaulds factory, near Bishop Auckland, will close in October.

The factory makes women's clothing for Marks and Spencer's exclusive Autograph range.

But production is being switched to a company with factories in Turkey and Morocco as M&S cuts its costs.

Bishop Auckland Labour MP says he has asked the board of M&S to reverse the decision to salvage almost 50 years of textile manufacturing at the County Durham plant.

Unions have launched a protest campaign against the store, which says it will continue to strive to cut costs to give its customers competitive prices.

Mr Foster said the closure announcement was another "devastating blow" to County Durham's fragile textile industry, which once employed thousands.

He said: "As soon as I heard what was happening, I contacted the board of Marks and Spencer and have asked them to reconsider their decision which will mean the closure of this factory."

Marks and Spencer says it has to reduce costs

Derek Cattell from the GMB union said: "Marks and Spencer have decided that in order to reduce their prices and maintain their profit margins the work is going to go overseas.

"Without that work it will be very difficult for the factory to survive. There's only work there until October and this is a factory that has existed under one name or another for almost 50 years."

More than 95% of the workforce at the American-owned factory are women.

Sara Lee Courtaulds' human resources director Chuck Rogalski said: "The prices and volumes currently produced cannot be profitably manufactured at the West Auckland site to meet the competitive price-point expectations of the market place.

"It's within Courtaulds' responsibility to manage the West Auckland site and we will consider alternatives through what will be a lengthy consultation process."

A spokeswoman for Marks and Spencer said: "We didn't make this decision, Sara Lee Courtaulds did.

'Secure recovery'

"They felt that it was appropriate for their business that they stopped producing clothes for our Autograph range.

" It's not viable for them to make these products at the prices we want to sell them.

"We have had to look at every aspect of our operations to ensure we could secure our recovery and one of the things we had to do was look at our suppliers and where they're based."

Derek Cattell added: "This is a disgraceful decision.

"People here have given their working lives to Marks and Spencer.

"We must campaign to get Marks and Spencer to reverse this decision which would have a disastrous effect on the local community."