So, it would appear that BHS, and its employees, have been extremely badly treated. Exploited and stripped of value by an uncaring owner. Except for Green’s immediate family, who seem to have done O.K. from the fiasco, I don’t think anyone will disagree with that verdict.
Whether or not he has his knighthood removed is a side issue. With the money at his disposal, it won’t make a ripple. But it would salve the consciences of government and its failed compliance monitoring machines.
What it doesn’t do is provide an answer for stopping future malpractices. And the reason for that requires a look a little further back over our shoulders. Accepting that any organisation is open to operational abuse, and the larger the organisation is the more prone it is to such abuse; there was, until fairly recently, a group of organisations whose purpose was to monitor the fairness, or lack of it, of the employment practices of Capitalism. They were called Trade Unions. You may have heard of them.
Ruthlessly attacked by the Thatcher government, and continuously disemboweled by subsequent governments, including the present one, is it really any surprise that practices exposed at BHS, and Sports Direct, have happened, and will continue to happen.
The latest incarnation of ‘May’ style toryism will not change the direction of the protection of workers rights, and leaving the EU, with working practice regulation enshrined in law, will only make matters worse. This is what is meant by freeing ourselves from EU rules that restrict business. The regulations restrict the opportunity to unfairly exploit, with freedom definitely only on one side.
So, one more or less knight is irrelevant. Sanctimonious protestations of disgust are irrelevant.
How about, for example, insisting that all companies with more than a stated number of employees should have union representation as a statutory requirement. If you want to look after the workers, then ensure the structures are in place to do it, rather than mouthing platitudes and doing nothing!
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