Kelly If only they’d had a union

inconvenience to business. Because of these safeguards, the cost of closing down the German factory was, the worker said he was told, 20% more than Seaton Delaval – and today the German workers have a future.

I have to point out Coty contacted me after I wrote a story about this and called it an “unfortunate misinterpretation of the information given”. The company added: “Our proposal takes into account multiple cost and non-cost factors relevant to this type of recommendation”.

The company source also asked me to add “subject to consultation” to the amount of job losses there. Call me a cynic, but I suspect its idea of consultation is different to mine and those 400 jobs are going.

While the relationship between industry and the unions has always been fractious, during the Thatcher era union-bashing became an Olympic sport and it’s not stopped since. As a result people’s response today to mention of the word ‘union’ is instantly negative, such has been the success of the Pavlovian conditioning of the country.

Yet now, more than ever, unions are needed, not just for the good of ordinary workers, but the economy as a whole. Higher wages mean people spend more.

Despite the low wage rates there has been an big upturn in consumer spending funded by a huge credit boom; if that doesn’t set the warning bells clanging, nothing will.

Another interesting fact is that between 2007 and 2015, the UK was the only big advanced economy in which wages contracted while the economy expanded. In Germany, for one, both the economy and wages have grown – so everyone enjoys the sweet smell of success. There has been despair among workers at the Coty fragrances factory in Seaton Delaval