Christmas shopping figures disappoints capitalists

Sowed today we hear the Christmas shopping figures in 2013 were very disappointing for a few big names on our high street including the likes of Tesco and Morison’s and Marks and Spencer’s I understand. Year has been mixed signals from the High Street, with Next, John Lewis and House of Fraser performing strongly, but disappointment for Debenhams and Mothercare. Also on Thursday, Tesco reported like-for-like sales down 2.4% in the six weeks to 4 January because of a "weaker grocery market". At the same time, rival Morrisons reported a 5.6% drop in like-for-like sales. Retail analyst Bryan Roberts said the company "should have held its nerve" and not pushed ahead with pre-Christmas sales High Street sales started well before Christmas, something underlined by data from the British Retail Consortium, which reported on Wednesday that shop prices fell by 0.8% in December, the fastest rate in almost seven years. Mr Bolland has reshuffled some key staff in the hope that a new clothing range, heavily promoted with a marketing campaign featuring the likes of Dame Helen Mirren, Tracey Emin and Darcey Bussell, would start delivering results. The executive makeover saw a new head of the GM division, John Dixon, brought over from the successful food section in October 2012, while Belinda Earl, the former Jaeger and Debenhams boss, became style director the month before. The usual hype about massive Xmas sales by retailers both in the US and in the UK turned out to be just that - hype. The shops experienced relatively dismal sales despite internet buying and massive discounts on items. According to ShopperTrak, US retailers posted their lowest holiday sales growth in four years. Sales between Thanksgiving and Christmas rose 2.7%, compared with 3% a year earlier, while the number of people walking into stores declined 14.6%. It was a similar story in the UK. Households continue to suffer falls in real income and so they are not increasing spending much beyond essentials. The misery continues for most.

Devastating food waste, capitalism will let you starve

first “All the world's nearly one billion hungry people could be lifted out of malnourishment on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in the US, UK and Europe,” says Feeding the 5,000, a campaign group which is pioneering food recycling. Tesco – the UK’s largest supermarket – admits that 28,500 tonnes of food waste were generated in its stores and distribution centres in just six months. And this is only part of the 15 million tonnes of food which is thrown away in the UK each year. Is this a new and startling reality? Not for me i've known for a while now that many supermarkets who do not manage to sell their food in time before they go past their sell by date are thrown away. If capitalists cannot make a profit on a comodity they would rather scrap it than allow teh poor to eat for nothing as there is no profit in that. This is the bare face of modern capitalism for me. sold. At a basic level, we are alienated from the very substances that keep us alive. Instead of seeing the lettuce leaves, apples, meat, fish and bread as precious products developed from nature by our fellow human beings, most see them as little more than useful commodities. We have long lost the connection with the land and soil on which they grow and the people who tend the crops. We prefer not to think about how “free range” eggs are collected by cheap labour or how animals are kept and slaughtered. We don’t think about the end destination of plastic, polystyrene and packaging used to attract children to dangerous sweets and to make us buy more an But what is needed is something different. The for-profit market-growth model must always prioritise its shareholder returns. Yes, some capitalists are much more far seeing than others. Yes, they may even believe the greenwash they churn out through their clever publicists. But as the recent scandal with egg production in the UK shows, the bottom line for most companies is that they want to maximise their profits. One of the greatest scourges of humanity – hunger and malnutrition – could be overcome if humanity could open up an alternative path where eating, like heating, comes before profit. This is why i fight and believe in a communist future with socail production at its heart producing for peoples needs not profits that only a few benifit from. There is more than enough food and resources in the world if we didnt focus on producing for profit and market share.

Keep up the pressure against workfare, for real jobs with decent pay

With the pressure growing day by day on the governments flagship Workfare scheme by ordinary people pressuring these companies and shaming them to cave in to public pressure.

It is quite clear that these companies value their reputation over a government work scheme. We have seen Tesco partially pull out, Burger King, Maplin, Sainsbury, among others. It is clear this scheme is rocking and the government are facing an embarrassing climb down on this project.

The idea of making young people volunteer to do unpaid labour in return for their benefits and if they refuse or pull out their benefits are cut is a disgrace.



SO i’m glad groups like youth fight for jobs and others have been highlighting these companies who are exploiting people for cheap labour.
I’d say this scheme isn’t finished yet and we must remain defiant in the face of a media barrage of abuse and distortions. Rewatching Newsnight from Friday night where youth fight for jobs national organiser Paul Callanan received all sorts of smears and distortions and Paul battered off their attempts to line him up as some crazy militant he was open and honest about being a member of the socialist party and too right where is the shame in that.

It is also clear that the media are trying to lump the SWP and the socialist party as one big mess on the left and a fragmented left this is designed to give the impression the left is divided and meaningless. This evidence of companies pulling out due to pressure from such groups giving backbone to a campaign against workfare has had some significant affect not that these organisations are crucial to the downfall of them but certainly help.

I think we need to keep the pressure up on the remaining companies and organisations as some are local councils and charities which is even more shocking that they’d be drawn into such ideas. It is clear that during times when many big businesses are not investing as see no place to make profit that using cheap labour is a convenient ploy for them to what they hoped would get them positive headlines in giving young people a chance to gain experience and work.

As socialists we are not against this but if work is there to be done which it clearly is pay the workers properly with decent terms and conditions with trade union rights too. The disgraceful situation of retail sector union USDAW in agreeing to the workfare scheme over the top of its members is another reason to make unions accountable to their rank-and-file and that the bureaucracy is out of control and out of touch of its members.

It is no skin of the likes of Tesco’s nose to pay a decent wage to its workers when it is making billions of pounds of profit but the fact it does not want to highlights the huge failure of capitalism to service its workers leading to the fact that Tesco’s workers cannot even buy the products they sell in store. What a ridiculous situation that is when Tesco workers have to buy their shopping in ALDi and LIDDEl for example. Another contradiction of capitalism perhaps?

The vast influence of Tesco in todays society

As many of you will be aware one of our biggest supermarkets if not our biggest in the UK Tesco dominate the high street in many towns and cities. We now have a case where we get what are called "tesco towns" where the influenceand the role a Tesco has is unrivaled in a town.

I found this set of facts about Tesco from the excellent Tescopoly website which you can check out here
http://www.tescopoly.org.uk/

1) 1 in every 7 pounds spent in the UK in 2007 was spent in Tesco

2) Tesco use their monopoly power to squeeze farmers hard. A Competition Commission investigation revealed that Tesco consistently pay suppliers nearly 4% below the average price paid by other retailers. There isn’t much evidence they pass these savings to consumers – they just pocket the profits.

3) Research by ActionAid found workers in Costa Rica producing bananas for export to all major UK supermarkets earning 33p an hour. This wage is so low that they cannot afford to take an hour off when dangerous pesticides are being sprayed on the crops.

4) Unite the Union have a long running campaign against Tesco over the terrible treatment of workers in their meat supply chain.

5) The New Economics Foundation have shown that fresh fruit and veg is, on average, 30% cheaper at a street market than it is in a supermarket. However, through short term aggressive pricing when they first move into an area, Tesco often shuts down these markets, reducing access to fresh fruit and veg for the poorest.

6) Tesco offer their best deals in out of town shopping centres rather than their city centre stores. This not only encourages driving, but also excludes those without cars – mostly, poorer people.

7) In the 5 years to 2002, an average of 50 local food shops were lost in the UK every week, largely due to the Tesco takeover.

8 ) Tesco is Europe’s biggest property company. In 2007 they were sitting on property assets worth £28bn.

9) Tesco are not a net creator of jobs. Because they aggressively force local shops out of business, and then provide the minimal possible service to customers, on average, every time a large supermarket opens, 276 jobs are lost.

10) Between 2003 and 2007 the Labour Party accepted donations of £54,194 from Tesco.


Unions have raised serious concerns about conditions for workers employed along supermarket supply chains in the UK. Pay and working conditions can be negatively affected as supermarkets squeeze suppliers for goods at lower prices or relocate in search of cheaper products. The major food retailers can exert undue pressure on suppliers causing job losses in food processing companies that simply cannot produce goods at the prices Tesco and their competitors wish to pay.

Unite has been campaigning in Supermarket supply chains such as the Red and White Meat Sectors since December 2007. This began by publicising the harsh conditions many workers in the UK experience when employed by companies supplying meat to some of the major Supermarkets. Unite then undertook a campaign against Tesco’s abuse of power over the Meat supply chains through the ‘Tesco: Every Workers Counts’ campaign. Unite works towards its ultimate goal of ensuring the highest ethical standards in the treatment of customers and to insist upon the highest ethical standards for workers employed by companies throughout the supply chain. For more
Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) meat sector inquiry
In March 2010 the EHRC released its findings from its "Inquiry into recruitment and employment in the meat and poultry processing sector". The report reveals evidence of the widespread mistreatment and exploitation of migrant and agency workers in the sector, and makes recommendations including supermarkets improving their auditing of suppliers; processing firms and agencies improving recruitment practices, working environments and the ability of workers to raise issues of concern; and for the government to provide sufficient resources for the Gangmasters’ Licensing Agency to help safeguard the welfare and interests of workers.

The Commission will review action taken over the next 12 months by supermarkets, processing firms and recruitment agencies, and will consider taking enforcement action if necessary.

The Commission launched its first ever Inquiry into a key sector of the economy in October 2008, focusing on the UK's multi-billion pound meat industry for evidence of employment abuse and discrimination. The meat sector is a significant industry employing some 40,000 workers across Britain engaged in processing and packaging meat for sale in supermarkets and retailers.

Tesco's profits are in very stark contrast with the suppliers who have been squeezed. In 2006 the T&G announced it was forming a national co-ordinating committee to bring together its shop stewards across the Tesco empire. The initiative was the first step on the road to fighting for jobs and decent pay, terms and conditions in the country's top supermarket. Shop stewards report pressures to make efficiency savings as well as demands to give up hard won pay and working conditions in order to be admitted into the Tesco pension schemes. According to Ron Webb, T&G national secretary for transport, "Unbelievable though it may be, Tesco is actually looking to make job cuts on the day it claims to be the consumers' friend. We do not accept these cuts are either necessary or ethical. How can a multi-billion pound outfit attack the pay, terms and conditions of those people it relies on to get its goods to the stores?"


The major supermarket chains have announced numerous environmental initiatives. Tesco announced a Community Plan including an Environment Fund of £100 million in a speech by Terry Leahy in May 2006, and have continued to announce further plans since then, including carbon labelling of their products.

Despite the many benefits of these initiatives, it remains the case that Tesco's size and growth, its numerous unsustainable products, and its impact on independent retailers stop it from being a truly green company. The same is true of the other large chains. With larger numbers of car-based hypermarkets and food being sourced from around the world, and trucked around the UK, these companies continue to damage the environment.

and press release on the environment fund and waste. George Monbiot in his book "Turn up the Heat" suggests that the increasing trend of individuals and companies showing their green credentials, is often green-wash hiding real environmental costs.

Some of supermarkets' environmental costs include:


• The food industry is responsible for a third of greenhouse gas emissions and therefore has a massive part to play in tackling climate change. The bulk of these emissions come from food production. Tesco and the other supermarkets must do more to make sure that their production lines are sustainable - this needs to be prioritised above paying farmers the lowest possible prices. Research by Friends of the Earth has shown that low prices have reduced farmers' ability to produce food in environmentally friendly ways. This needs to stop.

•Fewer local farmers and shops mean both customers and goods need to be transported further. This means more pollution from cars, as people drive further to shop, and more pollution from aircraft and lorries, as food is transported from around the world. Indeed Tesco's business could be seen as one of the drivers behind the rise in UK CO2 emissions. More needs to be done to support local, seasonal produce - something that independent shops and supermarkets are well suited to. On the other hand, a 2005 Friends of the Earth survey found that Tesco came lowest out of the supermarket chains for sourcing British apples.


•Tesco's store sizes means they are some of the most energy-inefficient buildings in the retail sector. A Sheffield Hallam University study found that despite the new stock, large superstores are the most energy inefficient buildings in the sector. It would take more than 60 corner shops and greengrocers to match the carbon dioxide emissions from one average sized superstore. Although they are taking steps to increase efficiency, their commitment to building yet more stores means that these savings will be cancelled out.


•Tesco also encourages shoppers to travel by car. One in 10 car journeys in the UK are now to buy food. Work for DEFRA suggests that car use for food shopping results in costs to society of more than £3.5 billion per year from traffic emissions, noise, accidents and congestion. Tesco has been massively expanding into "Extra" format hypermarkets, which are particularly geared towards car-based shopping. The proportion of Tesco's floorspace taken up by hypermarkets is three times what it was 6 years ago.

•Tesco boasts about its progress on reducing waste and how it is following a market trend to introduce degradable plastic bags. But grocery packaging still makes up roughly a quarter of household waste, and the UK's biggest supermarkets distribute billions of plastic bags, which end up in landfill. Even degradable bags do not help, as they will still predominantly go to landfill sites where the lack of sunlight and oxygen will hinder rapid breakdown. To make a real difference the supermarkets need to stop handing out free bags altogether.

•A large amount of food is being wasted. Tesco was among the supermarkets found to be rejecting apples purely on cosmetic grounds by a 2002 Friends of the Earth survey of fruit growers.

•Biofuels - Tesco is a major shareholder in and customer of Greenergy Biofuels Limited, a UK company promising customers climate-friendly, sustainable biofuels from UK rapeseed oil. The organisation BiofuelWatch has, however, undertaken research which reveals that Greenergy's biofuels contain increasing amounts of palm oil, soy and sugar cane. All three are crops linked to large-scale rainforest destruction, massive greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and peat and forest fires, and in some instances to human rights abuses.

SO Tesco who was the focus of a recent squatter protest in Stokes Croft last week as some of you who follow the news will have read and this is a sign of people saying enough is enough with more and more of these stores opening up every year.

Critics said they did not want the area to lose its local character and feared smaller shops would find their businesses threatened.

But Tesco said evidence showed that opening such a store could bring shoppers back to an area and help local traders.

Robin Markwell from BBC Radio Bristol, who spent several hours outside the building, said campaigners in the street had been shouting support to the squatters on the roof.

There had been one or two minor scuffles involving protesters and police outside. The atmosphere was "relatively calm", he said.

Bristol City Council has approved the change of use for the building.

A protest took place at the site in February.

Claire Milne, who represents the group No Tesco in Stokes Croft, told the BBC last month that the area was "a melting pot of independent traders" who may have to close if they are unable to compete with the multi-national company.


Bushra Randhawa, a postmaster and resident for 24 years, said last month: "It's taken a huge effort from local groups, traders and the community to regenerate this area.

"Only now does it feel like a real community spirit is developing.

"This move will take us two steps backwards when we need to take two steps forward."

As the eviction got under way, a Tesco spokesman said: "We're keen to invest in the area. Many local people we've spoken to tell us they are eager to see a Tesco Express at this site.

"Our store will create approximately 20 new jobs and provide shopping facilities for hundreds of local residents.

"The squatters, who were illegally occupying the building, were asked to leave but refused.

"High Court enforcement officers are removing them from the premises with the support of the police


So i go back to one of my points i've made before that this sort of protest and anger at such a plan by Tesco is down to the brutal nature of capitalism where their drive for profit and bigger dividends for their directors is paramount. If we were to see the top 300 monopolies including the likes of Tesco nationalised by a socialist government and brought in to public ownership under workers control the rich's of these companies would cease going striaght to the top but instead be reinvested in the workers paying them a good living wage for the area they live in. Allowing trade union involvement at a advanced scale to work alongside the workers who will run these monopolies for the many not just the few who cream off the profits year in year out.

Only this way will the power and greed of companies just like Tesco be controlled more equally for the benifit of all of society not just their directors who are dam right greedy.