Occupation Social entrepreneur | Children 3 | |
 | ||
People also search for Dierk Hebbeln, Tjeerd C.E. Van Weering Books The R factor, The Relational Manager, The Relational Lens: Un, After Capitalism: Rethinkin, The R Option: Building | ||
Dr Michael Schluter CBE (born 1947), is an economist, author, speaker and social entrepreneur and holds a PhD in agricultural economics. He has founded many different organisations and led the “Keep Sunday Special Campaign” which was one of several factors which led to the defeat of the Shops Bill 1986 in its second reading. He was appointed CBE by the Queen in the New Year Honours List 2009.
Contents
Keep Sunday Special Campaign
In 1983 he established the Jubilee Centre a Christian social reform think tank. In 1985, the Jubilee Centre brought together a coalition of retailers, trade unions and church-related organisations to fight Prime Minister Thatcher’s bill to deregulate Sunday trading. The “Keep Sunday Special Campaign” overturned a large government majority In 1994 the government passed a bill which allows large shops to open for six hours on Sunday while small shops can open when they like; this remains the law to this day. Schluter has continued to speak out against Sunday Trading, arguing that a new law needs to be brought in to give everyone a shared day off and to ensure parents are able to spend time with their children.
Peace Work
He also initiated a peace process under the name Newick Park Initiative (NPI) in South Africa, which held deliberately extremely low-profile conferences between 1987 and 1991 which eventually brought together the leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) and the white establishment to discuss key issues so as to ease the path to a political settlement. The work in South Africa led to a peace initiative in Rwanda after the genocide there and a peace process between North and South Sudan.
Relational Thinking
Schluter has founded two organisations which research relationships, Relationships Foundation and Relational Research. Schluter has also written several books on the subject. Schluter has argued that modern society takes very little account of relationships and has argued that the prevailing understanding of Capitalism in the West has "built within it a framework of thinking that says the growth of the capital is more important than relationships." He has argued that instead,society should focus on the importance of relationships whether that is in education or in companies.