Labour standards and wages the focus of a resolution at Tesco’s AGM today

We are all waiting with baited breath to hear about the outcome of the shareholder resolution at the Tesco AGM today. The campaign group Action Aid have brought Gertruida Baartman, a fruit picker from South Africa, over to speak about her experiences at this years AGM. It is the second year that Ms Baartman has visited the AGM. Last year Ms Baartman told how she worked very long hours for £3.41 per day. She demanded that Tesco use their influence to ensure a fairer deal for workers in their supply chain. She also explained how workers were exposed to dangerous pesticides. Terry Reid, the Chairman of Tesco promised to look into the issue and ensure conditions improved at her farm.

The Guardian have reported today that this year Gertruida has explained how some conditions have improved at her farm, especially after Tesco’s Chairman visited in May. However she says that her pay has not improved.

Tesco for their part have stated that they are members of the ETI and take labour standards in their supply chain very seriously.

At today’s meeting Tesco’s shareholder will be asked to consider a resolution demanding higher standards for workers in Tesco’s global supply chain. If passed, the resoulution would oblige Tesco to “appoint independent auditors to ensure that workers in its supplier factories are guaranteed decent working conditions, a living wage, job security and the right to join a trade union of their choice.”

Many of the larger shareholders are unlikely to support the resolution, because it asks the company to ‘guarantee’ conditions. Something that with the best will in the world Tesco is unlikely to be able to ensure. However the resolution, which was tabled by War on Want’s company secretary, Ben Birnberg, has the support of investors like the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

There is still a great deal of pressure on supermarkets to show that they are responding to these issues. It is unlikely to go away.

Chinese Workers Paid With Fake Cash

There was a burst of incredulous laughter from one side of the Impactt office this afternoon, as this news piece dropped into our inboxes, signalling a new low for labour standards in China. 

The article, posted on ChinaCSR.com, reports that 20 workers at an unnamed jeans-dyeing factory in Guangdong were paid in fake bank notes. When the workers asked the factory to exchange the fake notes for real ones, they were dismissed. 

The factory reportedly claimed that they were victims of the forgery as well, and that they would pay the workers in real currency when they had resolved the issue with their bank. But this does not explain the dismissal of the workers, and goes against the additonal reports that the factory ‘usually uses the fake notes only for new workers’.  

The story is in fact not remotely funny.

We have spent the past 30 minutes discussing what we should say on this matter, and how we as a company should react to the news. What we all agree on is that this is a form of forgery that goes well beyond the common practice of faking books to show that workers have been paid the correct amount of real currency.