Claire’s Workers Should Occupy Shops To Protest Closures

When companies close down workers are always stuck at the end of the queue waiting for wages or redundancy payments. Workers at Claire’s stores have been told it’s closing with workers at St. Stephen’s Green told to shut up shop.

Staff have hit out at this “disgusting” treatment of over 100 workers at the 14 remaining shops. The US retail chain was bought by Modella Capital last year.

Modella Capital is a London-based private equity firm that specialises in buyouts, restructurings, and turnaround investments - meaning they buy up companies and flip them for profit. Modella Capital is owned by the Hay Wain Group Limited, a company ran by rich vulture Jamie Constable.

In letters sent to workers, they were told that “extremely difficult decisions” had to be made due to the company’s “insolvency and the challenges it continues to face”.

Workers are in limbo as they were told that as a 30-day “consultation period” is happening and no formal notice of redundancy can be given until the 9th of April.

Geraldine Crooke, a worker at Claire’s for 16 years said: “We’re the ones getting penalised… We can’t get paid for the month, we can’t get paid by the state through social welfare because we’ll still be listed as staff until 9 April. It’s just disgusting to think that this is happening now.”

In September 2025, Modella bought 156 “profitable” Claire’s stores leaving 145 “underperforming” stores to be closed. Then by putting the company back into administration in 2026, Modella can walk away from expensive leases and massive debt obligations (including a £355 million loan due in 2026!)

Modella separately reached a deal to license the Claire’s name from the US parent company, allowing them to keep the brand alive. Modella’s profit strategy relies on “financial engineering” and asset stripping not daily retail sales. They don’t give a damn what the shops sell or what happens to the workers.

Workers should follow the example set by Thomas Cook workers who occupied the Grafton Street store in 2009 to protest redundancies and won extra payments for all workers with their stand.

Following the 2015 closure of Clery’s department store, the Duffy-Cahill Report made several recommendations to stop “tactical insolvencies”. As of March 2026, the Fianna Fáil Fine Gael Lowry government has implemented some, but not all, of these recommendations.

The law did not change the “order of distribution” in liquidations. While liquidators can now be fined, the legislation stopped short of making directors personally responsible or criminally liable for failing to consult workers during a tactical shutdown.

The new legislation doesnt stop the splitting up of companies and debt loading. There is also no legal obligation to inform trade unions about closures, they just have to tell individual workers.

And collective redundancy agreements are still not legally binding. The government and the courts are not on our side. That’s why the example of the Thomas Cook workers matters so much. They showed that by occupying and making their redundancies a national issue, workers can get more.

Every worker needs to stand with the Claire’s workers and our unions need to step up. The government’s arrogance is in inverse proportion to how much we fight back. When we roll over it just lets them do what they want. It’s time to organise and fight.