While Tesco chief executive Terry Leahy draws £916,000 a year basic salary a 16 year-old Tesco worker can get paid as little as £3.77 an hour. And shelf-stackers and check-out staff are up in arms about attacks on sick pay and worsening UK supermarket giant Tesco stands accused of using its prominent position in the world food market to fuel the exploitation of workers and farmers at home and overseas.
In April, as the company announced record profits of £2billion a year, the NGOs Action Aid and Oxfam accused Tesco of loading many of the costs and risks of its fresh-produce business onto poor farmers.
These producers, they claimed, then pass on the costs to their workers, especially women, in the form of precarious employment, low wages and often appalling working conditions.
Fruit pickers on Tescoaccredited farms in South Africa's Western Cape are in a desperate situation.
Action Aid described how pesticides were sprayed while women - who were given no protective clothing - worked in orchards. By contrast, male workers were apparently given protective clothing.
Tesco says 'Our suppliers comply with minimum wage legislation and provide free housing, medication and schooling for their workers.' • Yet Tawana Fraser, quoted in the Action Aid report, was paid £32.50 a fortnight on a Western Cape pear farm - £3.50 below the South Africa minimum for two weeks' work. I can't afford school fees for my daughters or go to school functions or buy school uniforms, she
Gloria Nama, cited in the same report, described how she slept on the floor on a plastic sheet. "There's no water, or electricity and the walls are made of cardemployment conditions. board, she said.
And fruit-picker Aruna Morrison talked about the meagre food her wages can buy: On Sundays we'll,go out of our way to eat meat... other times we eat only bread and butter... it's so TESCO sad when your child cries for some bread, but there is nothing to give.
To save money South African farmers are hiring more temporary and contract labour.
Women employed on seasonal contracts in work eight to 1l months, year after year, but as seasonal workers most get no paid sick leave or maternity leave and no medical cover. When children are sick, women must take unpaid time off. In the season they have to work an Il-hour day bent over in the sun.
While Tesco operates codes longer to seal these bags. But the price stayed exactly the same -- it wasn't even discussed.'
On their home ground too, Tesco bosses are accused of trading unfairly with their suppliers.
Chair of the Small and Family Farms Alliance, Michael Hart, speaking to Friends of the Earth (FOE), condemned what he called "huge mark-ups and clear profiteering" by Tesco in the case of many products. His criticism was echoed by Peter Lundgren of the pressure group Farm' who told FOE: It's time for fare and high environmental standards demanded by the consumer.'
While Tesco chief executive Terry Leahy draws £916,000 a year basic salary a 16 year-old Tesco worker can get paid as little as £3.77 an hour. And shelf-stackers and check-out staff are up in arms about attacks on sick pay and worsening employment conditions.
The shop workers' union USDAW is currently supporting an 'experiment' by Tesco in 10 stores under which sick pay is cut for the first three days staff are off ill and workers in these selected stores are asked to accept a voluntary change of contract for a 12-month period.
In the eyes of many Tesco workers this trial will inevitably lead to the permanent removal of sick pay for the first three days of illness. They regard their union as hooked into the worst kind of partnership with Tesco, a deal (held up as a model by the TUC) which allows only one union rep on staff committees' and leaves USDAW with no real negotiating power.
Anger at this situation and a crisis of confidence in the union has provoked a sharp Internet among Tesco workers who also exchange information about conditions in different Tesco branches. Several workers revealed online that their stores had forced them to work some bank holidays - and without being paid overtime.
One told how in his store a number of section managers were being removed and the Sources: Action Aid International www.actionaid.org Trading Away our Rights' Oxfam International 2004; 'Every Little Hurts - Why Tesco Needs to be Tamed' FOE June 2004; 'USDAW giving away workers' rights' Mark Sandell, Solidarity 3/54, 24 June 2004
Tesco the world's third
largest retailer, is worth
more than the entire economy of countries such as
Cambodia, Mozambique and
Ghana.
In 2004-5 the corporation
made record profits of E2bilHon.
• lesco sources products
through suppliers in more
than 100 countries and sells
Through 2,300 stores in 11
countries including 83
hypermarkets in central
Europe, 42 in Thailand and
21 in South Korea,
• In 2003 Tesco chief executive Terry Leahy received a
basic salary of E916.000;
performance-related
bonuses of E1.85m; and benelits including life assurance, disability insurance,
health insurance and pension worth E1.7m.
(Sources:
Oxtam and Action Aid) staff canteen being put out to tender so that staff would soon be forced to pay for everything including tea and coffee.
To those disillusioned USDAW members in Tesco thinking of leaving the union another contributor sent this message: Better for rank-and-file USDAW members to get together and organise a fight to scrap this "partnership" nonsense, and kick out the bureaucrats who signed up to it and signed your rights away. Does anyone reading this know if there is a group in USDAW organising in this way?'