Trade and gender
Who pays?: how British supermarkets are keeping women workers in poverty
How UK supermarkets are abusing workers in their supply chains
Authors:
Publisher:
ActionAid International, 2007
This report discusses the supply chains that link UK supermarkets to producers in developing countries. The report argues that the structure of the supermarket supply chains has changed in recent years in ways that allow supermarkets to “cherry pick” suppliers from developing economies. The report reviews the impact on sectors including the banana sector in Costa Rica, the garment sector in Bangladesh and the cashew nut sector in India.
The report argues that the increasing power of supermarkets in global markets results in:
- increasing suppliers’ dependence, locking them into exclusive deals or taking up a large percentage of their production
- regularly ‘delisting’ suppliers, or threatening to delist them, to extract more favourable terms
- joining together in international buying groups to increase buying power.
As a result of this supermarket concentration, workers in the developing world are faced with extremely poor wages and working conditions. The report argues that voluntary initiatives such as the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) have failed to curb these abuses.
The report recommends that the UK government:
- establish an independent supermarkets regulator
- extend the scope of competition policy to enable effective monitoring and regulation of UK companies’ buying practices in key sectors, at home and overseas
- use other areas of policy and law, including company law, to make UK companies more accountable for the impacts of their buying practices on workers and producers in developing countries.
The report recommends that supermarkets:
- publicly commit to ensuring that the internationally recognised rights of all workers in their supply chains are respected
- publicly acknowledge the damaging impacts of buying practices on workers and suppliers, and take concrete steps to address them
- do not respond to the exposure of poor working conditions in supply chains by ‘cutting and running’.
- work with each other, suppliers, trade unions, local civil society groups and governments to improve conditions.
