James Cropper plc has a long history in the area. For generations, the business has provided jobs, helped support the natural environment, and supported community initiatives in the area. However, we believe that the continued involvement in F35 production undermines this legacy.

 

At the end of April 2023, at its AGM James Cropper plc announced a programme of a 10% jobs cull of the 600 strong workforce in Burneside, giving 90 days notice of mass redundancies “In order to create a more resilient and higher margin business”. While company documents mention consulting trades unions, (Unite union has represented workers there), there is no publicly information available from the unions about their response to the job cuts, nor any mention from them of the company online.

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This "restructuring" attempts to move the company further into capital intensive high-tech and specialist sectors and closes down some of its more traditional paper milling capacity. The 2023 restructuring now re-groups James Cropper plc into four subdivisions: ‘James Cropper Creative Papers’; ‘James Cropper Luxury Packaging’; ‘James Cropper Technical Fibres’ and; ‘James Cropper Future Energy’.

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In these announcements, the company also remarked on better than expected profits. From the 2023 restructuring it appears that the move into sectors like F-35 warplane components does not lead to more local jobs in Burneside and Kendal, but so far 10% less, and counting. We are asking chairman Mark Cropper to take steps to end the contract for the F-35, and to protect people’s jobs and livelihoods by finding alternative markets for technical fibre products.

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In June 2008 a factory worker at the Burneside James Cropper paper mill, Wayne Miller aged 48 from Kendal, was left permanently disabled after his hand and arm were dragged into a machine. This followed two previous similar accidents with other workers at the Burneside factory on similar machines. The James Cropper mill admitted liability and had to pay Wayne Miller £300,000. Wayne, a member of the Unite union, said he claimed compensation not just for himself but to sort out a bigger problem at the James Cropper Burneside site faced by workers there, arguing that:

“Another reason for claiming compensation was to make sure my employers learnt from my accident. There had been two similar accidents in the factory but the machine I was using was not included in any health and safety changes. If they had maybe my injury could have been avoided”.