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The Herald

Diageo, the drinks giant whose plans to axe 900 jobs at its Kilmarnock plant and Port Dundas whisky distillery have provoked widespread condemnation, has been branded socially irresponsible by a leading business thinker.

William Hopper, author of The Puritan Gift: Reclaiming the American Dream Amidst Global Financial Chaos, said: “Diageo is a company run brilliantly by bean-counters, and the chief financial engineer is its chief executive, Paul Walsh. Unsurprisingly, there are some distasteful aspects to its activities, not least that it earns most of its profits in the UK but pays most of its taxes overseas; scarcely the behaviour of a good corporate citizen.”

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A business plan to save the Diageo plant in Kilmarnock from closure is to be handed to the Scottish Government by East Ayrshire Council.The council’s case will be presented to Finance Secretary John Swinney. It is the latest stage of a multi-agency cross-party campaign to save the town’s bottling plant and the Port Dundas distillery in Glasgow.

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“The simple answer is yes, this bottling could move overseas. We produce Smirnoff all over the world so the argument is we can just disgorge it in different places.”

Full story:
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/business/Diageo–warns-of-further.5579572.jp

The version we used to link to here, which was overlaid with text comments explaining this link and promoting our campaign has also been removed, which is a great shame. Nevertheless, we found this original version (for the time being) so you can see how Johnnie Walker and Kilmarnock walk thegither!

 

Trainspotting star plugs Johnnie Walker as they move to axe jobs -

(Aug 16 2009 Norman Silvester)

ANGRY campaigners are urging Scots film star Robert Carlyle to join the fight to save 700 Johnnie Walker jobs in Kilmarnock … after he starred in a £300,000 advert for the whisky.

Drinks giants Diageo have released the lavish promo about the Ayrshire roots of the famous brand as they threaten to close their bottling plant in the town.

The six-minute video features Carlyle walking through the hills while explaining the story of the drink’s founder…..

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Willie, who was born in Kilmarnock in 1936 and now lives in Glasgow, spent the day with the BBC film crew. They visited various locations around town, including Grange Street and West George Street, where Willie spoke to several ex-Johnnie Walker workers.

He also chatted to passers-by in Bank Street about the plight of hundreds in the town facing joblessness and the fight to save 700 Johnnie Walker jobs in Kilmarnock.

Mr McIlvanney, who had been abroad when the 20,000 strong mass rally was held, said: “I couldn’t believe the passion in the place. I only wish I had been able to be at the march.”

He added: “It was the Kilmarnock Edition of Robert Burns that introduced his poems to the world – poems which had at their core a profound belief in the dignity and importance of the ordinary worker.

“It is bitterly ironic that what is probably the second most famous product of Kilmarnock, Johnnie Walker whisky, is now being used to subvert that belief, to demonstrate utter contempt for the ordinary workers who, over generations, have made the product the respected world brand it is today.

“It’s enough to make Robert Burns turn in his grave at a thousand revs a minute.

“Diageo, the current owners of Johnnie Walker, can have no motivation for closing down the plant in Kilmarnock but greed. Having made over £2 billion profits last year, they are trying to devise ways of making more, regardless of the devastating impact their soulless pursuit of

money will have on the lives of those who made their product so profitable in the first place. There can be no response to such contempt for people but total opposition.”

Other well-known Scots backing the campaign include the Proclaimers, Biffy Clyro, Eddi Reader, Trashcan Sinatras and poet Rab Wilson.

To see William McIlvanney supporting the Keep Johnnie Walker in Kilmarnock campaign, watch The One Show on BBC1 on Monday 3 August.

For more information, visit www.keepjohnniewalkerinkilmarnock.com.

Note to editors:
William McIlvanney was born in Kilmarnock in 1936, the youngest of four children of a miner who took part in the 1926 General Strike. His father died when Willie was eighteen, an experience reflected in his first novel Remedy is None. Willie was educated at Kilmarnock
Academy and was the first member of his family to go to university. He was an English teacher in Ayrshire, before becoming a full-time writer in 1975.
Remedy is None (1966) won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Docherty (1975), a moving portrait of a miner whose courage is tested during the depression, won the Whitbread Novel Award. Other works include The Big Man, The Kiln, Laidlaw, The Papers of Tony Veitch and Weekend. Some of his stories are set in Graithnock, a fictional town based on Kilmarnock.