Blog Archives
Campaign for a Supermarket Watchdog
Supermarkets have used their buyer power to squeeze suppliers and drive down pay and working conditions around the world. This means the people that make the clothes and grow the food sold in UK supermarkets are often poorly paid, overworked, work in unsafe conditions and are discouraged from joining trade unions. We wouldn’t accept this situation in the UK, so why should they?
After War on Want and other campaigners exposed the way supermarkets were using their power to bully their suppliers, the Competition Commission investigated and found that the voluntary code that supermarkets had put in place had failed. In its 2008 report it found that supermarkets passed ‘excessive risks and unexpected costs’ onto their suppliers, through forcing them to accept unfair terms of conditions. The report recommended setting up a new code of practice that governs supermarkets relationships with their suppliers and called for a new watchdog to stop unfair practices.
In 2012 the government finally responded to campaigners demand to introduce a watchdog, introducing a bill into parliament to establish a Groceries Code Adjudicator to oversee the new code of practice. This was a huge success for supermarket campaigners, both in getting government proposals into parliament and getting key measures included, like making sure trade unions can bring complaints, not just supplier bosses.
While the proposals are a huge step forwards, the bill risks setting up a watchdog that won’t be powerful enough to get supermarkets to change their ways, with only the power to ‘name and shame’ supermarkets, not to fine them. We know from our years of campaigning that exposing supermarkets abuses is not enough to make them change – only by affecting their profits by fining them can they be made to change.
Take action now and ask your MP to support a supermarket watchdog that has the power to fine.
Tesco to pay Aldi €150k in price comparison row
The Commercial Court has been told that a settlement has been reached between Aldi and Tesco after the German chain sued its supermarket competitor over inaccurate price comparisons.
The discount retailer alleged that Tesco had failed to compare like with like, had not stated the correct sale price of relevant Aldi products and had failed to compare the relevant quantities.
Aldi wittingly had used the example of a bag of mint humbugs to support their case. It rather looks like The Tesco humbug has been exposed yet once again.
It relation to Tesco just remember every little bit helps to hurt somebody else
Glimmers of Light
Banks
Irish bank deposits up 0.7% in August
In July, deposits were falling at an annual rate of 0.8% but last month deposits increased by 0.7% compared to August 2011.
Private sector deposits from outside Ireland grew by €712m during the month.
Even though banks appear to be slowly, repairing their balance sheets this seems to be happening at the expense of any new lending.
Retail Sales
New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that the volume of retail sales rose for the second month in a row in August.
The volume of retail sales rose by 0.4% in August compared to July, while there was an annual decrease of 0.6%.
The CSO said what when car sales are excluded, the volume of retail sales rose by 0.1% in August from July, while there was an annual increase of 0.4%.
Breaking down the figures, they show that sales in bars rose by 3.2% in August, while sales of hardware, paints, and glass increased by 2.1%.
The largest decreases were seen in sales of furniture and lighting (3.5%), clothing and footwear (2.3%) and fuel (2.2%).
