I have a home and a large part of my heart in West Cork. During the past decade the beast that is Tesco has got a foothold on Ireland and gradually applied its normal business practices to the Republic’s Farmers. At last they are starting to see things clearly.
From “The Southern Star” previously the Skibbereen Eagle
STRIKING Tesco supermarket workers have a most unusual ally: Ned O’Keeffe, the maverick TD, Biffo scourge and pig farmer.
But unlike the striking Bolshies who simply want a better deal, Nedo is demanding that the British owned Tesco chain clear out of the country. We don’t want them, he says, because they’ve put the squeeze on Irish farmers by seeking cuts of up to 20% in the price of food produce. “That’s disgraceful carry-on,” he complained.
Worse still, Ned warns that if we continue to consume the stuff Tesco sells a ‘long-term impact on Irish diets’ could follow. Last month he rhetorically asked if these were the kind of products that Irish people wanted to purchase instead of the higher-quality Irish products.
So, he argues, it would be better for everyone if Tesco ‘were to leave Ireland altogether.’ Other supermarkets would fill the gap. This would lead to less exploitation of Irish farmers and of those who work in the Irish food production sector.
Interestingly, while Nedo waxed lyrical about the plight of the poor farmer, it never seemed to cross his mind that the poor Tesco worker was also suffering.
As the former mini-minister waved the green flag, workers at the Cork Douglas store were facing lay-offs. They had been warned such was their fate if they did not accept eroded terms and conditions when the company moved to a new store in the same Douglas Village Shopping Centre.
In response, the shop assistants’ Mandate union threatened strike action. When the 85 workers began to picket the store, the company was taken aback at the support the strikers got from shoppers and quickly caved in.
MORE STRIKES
That was in April. Now another strike is looming but this time it will be nationwide. In 19 shops across the country, Some 1,200 staff will walk out on July 2, followed by two further strike days on July 9th and 10th. The point at issue is cutbacks in working hours.
Mandate alleges that low-paid shop assistants on 25 to 30-hour contracts have had their hours unnecessarily reduced below the minimum amount agreed in contract. Some workers, says the union, have had more than €100 knocked off their wages.
“We will not accept companies playing off the recession and we will fight to maintain and improve the living standards of our members”, said Mandate assistant general secretary Linda Tanham.
For its part Tesco claims any reduction in staffing hours are as a result of adverse trading patterns. It says that a strike at this time would be ‘particularly disappointing because of the huge price reduction programme that it introduced and which will lead to more hours being offered to staff, plus greater job security.’
While the supermarket giant has a knack of generating negative publicity, it also has supporters because of the 13,500 jobs it provides, the cheap food and the convenience. Government ministers have no qualms about officially opening new Tesco stores, even though Tesco’s monopoly and power to stifle smaller retailers, such as butchers, bakers, and small supermarkets can rip the heart out of a local community.
Ireland, however, has been good for Tesco. Irish profits are projected to rise to €255 million this year, a fact that has not deterred the company from downgrading its Irish head office in Dun Laoghaire and outsourcing much of the work to India.
Last May, Tesco got a pat on the head from Biffo’s government after it reduced prices in 11 stores near the border. Yet, despite the price cuts, goods in Tesco’s other Irish stores still remain 13.2 percent dearer than in the UK and 0.5 percent higher than Dunnes. The National Consumer Agency called for price reductions in all of Tesco’s Irish stores.
But what got up Ned O’Keeffe’s nose was that the price cuts came with a nasty kick. Neither he, the IFA nor the food and drink industry were happy, claiming that, in tandem with the reductions in border shops, Tesco was seeking price cuts of up to 20% from Irish suppliers.
FRUSTRATED FARMERS
The Organic Farmers and Growers Association said Tesco was seeking reductions of up to 40% from organic suppliers. And then there was the spectacle of frustrated potato farmers bursting into a meeting of Tesco managers in Ashbourne to protest at what they alleged was a Tesco tactic to pack imported potatoes in bags similar to those that carry Irish produce.
The IFA says Tesco’s real agenda is to push Irish food processors, farmers and growers into the frontline in the latest round of supermarket wars. Its president, Padraig Walshe, said there was deep anger over the retail giant’s decision to displace local, quality produce with imports.
“Growers cannot stay in business because of Tesco’s ruthless pursuit of profit and market share,” he said. “The persistent pressure on the price paid to the producer will inevitably lead to thousands of job losses and will put Irish producers of local, fresh produce out of business.”
LED TO SLAUGHTER
Fine Gael’s agriculture spokesman Michael Creed compared Ireland’s retail sector to the ‘wild west’ and commented that Irish suppliers were ‘led to the slaughter by the multiples’. He pointed out that multiples had a 177% mark-up for milk.
Even the incompetent Tanaiste Mary Coughlan rowed into the controversy by promising a code of practice to “regulate the relationship between suppliers and retailers.” Of course, all the interested parties greeted that gem of wisdom with loud guffaws for the nonsense that it was.
In the meantime it would be nice, perhaps, if Ned, the IFA and the food suppliers spent less time moaning about the demise of Irish pastoral life and sought some kind of common ground with the hard-pressed cloth cap brigade – and with Tesco.
NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS
A chap from Drogheda, Thomas Leddy, is fed up with bad news, moaning Minnies, whining politicos, snivelling journos and the general mass of complaining, querulous people who make up the body politic.
So he’s launched a ‘Good News Only’ campaign. It goes like this: the media should publish how many jobs have been saved, instead of the number of jobs lost; a complete ban on reporting job losses for one week should take place; media reptiles should tell jokes instead of writing about doom and gloom; the media also should get the punter to buy more because the more that’s spent, the more people will keep their jobs.
Great idea! So, from now on dear reader, instead of buying one copy of The Southern Star every week, buy two. And that’s our first joke!
The Incisal Edge 