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PRESS STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday 10 February 1998

Last night at the Brit Awards ceremony, Cherie Blair promised to raise the issue of Nigel Cook the trade unionist sacked on the orders of PolyGram managers. Nigel Cook worked for M&S Packaging (Blackburn) Ltd, an outsourced operation of the Blackburn based multinational CD manufacturer PolyGram.

Workers at M&S are paid as low as £3 an hour. They have no security of employment and are denied  holiday and sick pay. Women workers do not have basic maternity rights.

The Reinstate Nigel Cook Campaign took their protest to the annual Brit Awards ceremony in London’s Dockland Arena on 9 February. There, hundreds of supporters, with placards and banners, gave out thousands of leaflets to those attending the glitzy ceremony, asking them to raise the issue of poverty pay with the record label managers of PolyGram. Cherie Blair on being handed a leaflet by one of the protesters said she would take up the issue with PolyGram.

The band Chumbawamba left the ceremony to greet the protesters encouraging them to fight on until their demands were met.

The Reinstate Nigel Cook Campaign is determined to pressurise PolyGram at every opportunity until it stops outsourcing its work to sweatshop firms paying poverty wages. The campaign will continue until these conditions are met and Nigel Cook is reinstated and compensated for loss of earnings.

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