Comment: Tesco profit attacked by global activist group

The U.K. retail sector has seen a general downward trend with companies such as Burberry, struggling in the home market. Yet, in a tough environment, UK retail giant Tesco, has reported an 11.3% rise in sales for the 12 weeks ending May 21. A £2bn profit.

One would have thought, that any company making a profit in such an economic climate would be welcomed. However, The Friends Of The Earth Society, think differently.

They accuse Tesco, who control nearly 30% of the grocery market in the UK, of being a monopoly and destroying the traditional, "British High Street."

The fanatical global activist group, allege that Tesco's success is partly based on trading practices that are having serious consequences for suppliers, farmers, overseas workers, local shops and the environment.

Notice the word, "partly". In other words, even they admit, that even if this were the case, these alleged factors are only partly responsible for Tesco's profit.

Tesco is one of the relatively few British retail success stories, with over 250,000 staff and 15 million customers. Loss of profit equals loss of jobs. If Tesco were to go under, it would have a far greater impact on the community in general than on uncompetitive shop keepers and notoriously inefficient British farmers.

"Profit" is not a dirty word, "failure" is. You can see the results of corporate failure, (often the result of an economically unsustainable workforce) at your local unemployment office.

Yes, Tesco did make a big profit. They also paid a substantial amount to charity, something The Friends of The Earth choose not to mention.

As a member of Business in the Community's Per Cent Club Tesco, give at least 1% of pre-tax profits to charity in the form of donations, employee time and gifts in kind. This year, the total value of their charitable contribution was over £21 million.

In 2004, over 409,000 women took part in Cancer Research UK's Race for Life. Tesco gave £250,000 to sponsor the event, and paid the registration fees of 18,752 staff who took part. They also topped up all funds raised by staff by 20%.

It is not only in the UK that the community benefits from Tesco's success. In Korea there is a Cultural Centre in every store, used for a wide variety of activities including 'Learn to Give' training, held in partnership with the Beautiful Foundation. In Thailand, each time a Tesco Lotus Value store opens, Tesco set up 50 scholarships for high school students from deprived backgrounds.

That does not stop The Friends Of The Earth, from sprouting the usual poppy cock - that "global food companies have grown too powerful and are undermining the fight against poverty in developing countries."

Of course, they had to say "global food companies" because no self respecting activist group can make any statement without using the world "global" or deriding any event or organisation that has the word, "world" in it's title.

Australian Treasurer, Peter Costello, summed it up in an address to the Sydney Institute.

"There is a self-styled anti-globalisation movement that pretends to the contrary. This movement likes to protest against the meeting of any organisation that has the word `world' in its name - the "World" Trade Organisation (Seattle December 1999), the "World" Bank (Washington April 2000), the "World" Economic Forum (Melbourne September 2000).

Yet these demonstrations are organised on the Internet, otherwise known as the "World" Wide Web, its members fly the One "World" airline network to get to anti-globalisation rallies and once there they organise demonstrations for "world" wide television coverage.

Some of these people are committed leftists. They are not against internationalism. They are against international markets for capital. They wouldn't mind a bit of internationalism of the socialist variety."

With a network in over 70 countries, the Friends of The Earth, (who pride themselves on grassroots activism), certainly have no objection to globalisation of activism - or for the six figure salaries of executives such as the organisations President, Brent Blackwelder.

As I said earlier, profit is not a dirty word. Except to a multitude of rag tag, rent-a-mob activist groups, trade unions and work avoiding bar room socialists.

The Guv'nor