Email James Daunt - CEO of Waterstones

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James Daunt - MD of Waterstones

Kate Skipper - COO

Please edit the email to put in your personal reasons why you think Waterstones should properly support the Black Lives Matter movement.

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It has now been over a month since you announced that Waterstones will be donating 10% of Reni Eddo-Lodge’s ‘Why I’m…’ sales, which has been matched by Bloomsbury.  We understood this to be a great first step in Waterstones supporting the BLM movement, however, we are concerned that you believe this action is enough, and that you will stop here.

Emails to staff suggest that ‘Diversity, Equality and Inclusion continues to progress’. However, from all that we can see this ‘progress’ has completely ground to a halt. We understand that ‘action’ is being done behind closed doors, yet we find this opacity unacceptable. Waterstones owes its customers and employees complete transparency with the DEI action and progress being undertaken.

We are not expecting complete structural change overnight, yet we are expecting a level of accountability to your actions. As we are sure you understand the 10% donation was a great beginning, however, it was just that, a beginning. We have not heard of any timeframe for action, therefore, we are asking for key things from Waterstones:

- To be continually kept in the loop of planned changes, with a public announcement of what the corporation will be doing to enact this change, e.g. working with Creative Access.
A timeframe of how long this change will take. An example of a business doing this is Penguin, who have provided clear short term, and longer term action plans. e.g. ‘In August we will pilot inclusivity training, which will be mandatory, and roll out to include all colleagues through the autumn.’

- An inclusivity audit of Waterstones itself, and a transparent commitment to inclusive hiring practices, at all levels of the business.

- As Booksellers at Waterstones we know the Book Of The Month (BOTM) to be a core practice of the bookshop, and we also know that these BOTM have been primarily white authors month after month. Waterstones must promote books by Black authors for their BOTM scheme and in wider bookselling practicies.

- 10% of a singular book over this period was NEVER  enough. We are asking for clear long-term contributions to the BLM movement, which would mean maintaining the 10% donation all year round and adding other book titles for which you would make similar donations.

Being silent is never enough. We are asking for Waterstones to hold itself to account of the change that it is committing to. When we first brought this issue to Waterstones, you asked for time to work on outcomes. We have not demanded complete structural change overnight, but we do need to know that this issue has not been sidelined, and that you are making progress.

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Email James Daunt - CEO of Waterstones

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Thank you for taking part! Here's a list of fantastic organisations campaigning for justice right now. Please give what you can to support the movement:

Black Lives Matter UK: https://www.blacklivesmatter.uk/

Black Visions Collective: https://www.blackvisionsmn.org

Emergency Release Fund: https://emergencyreleasefund.com

The Bail Project: https://bailproject.org

If you want to start a campaign calling on your workplace or industry to support the Black Lives Matter movement, you can start a campaign here: https://teamup.organise.org.uk/