Every broken window helps... bristol u.k.

Tuesday March 09, 2010 11:23

On the morning of Tuesday the 9th of March, 2010, a group of concerned individuals struck back against the coporate invasion of our neighbourhoods by attacking a Tesco store on Church Road, Redfield, Bristol. All the front windows were broken and the simple message, "No Tesco!" was emblazened on the front of the building.

In the words of participants:

"We took this action because we are sick of the corporate take-over of our high streets. Tesco is just one example of the way in which our cities are homogenised with corporate chains who pay little or no attention to workers rights or the environmental impact of their practices at home or in the many foreign countries where their products come from. Tesco operates predatory and monopolistic tactics to occupy high-streets, buying up multiple store fronts in false names to crowd out the competition and undercutting small competitors. Its model of mass production is environmentally destructive on many levels - promoting intensive, chemically enhanced farming methods, shipping, flying and trucking products from all over the world, producing inordinate amounts of waste - food that simply gets thrown away - and over-packaging its goods.

Thanks to rapid growth in recent years, Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons now control over 70% of the UK groceries market. Increasingly, if producers overseas want to get into the UK market, they have to deal with supermarkets. Supermarkets use the buying power that comes with this dominant position to force farms and factories in poor countries to lower their prices, deliver goods ever faster and at shorter notice. The pressure on suppliers to deliver more for less is passed on to workers in the form of low wages, job insecurity and poor working conditions - at home and abroad.

We understand that for many people in the UK Tesco is attractive because it is cheap. There are alternatives, however, with supermarkets in a dominant position most alternatives remain a small and expensive option. In order to build alternatives then we must at the same time destroy the problem. We do not believe that pleading with local or national governments or authorities to stop these advances works - look where it has got us so far. We are fed up with always being on the defensive - trying to stop the next supermarket whilst we simply accept lying down the ones they have already successfully built. The only language these multinational companies understand is profit - thus we aim, if only in a small way to damage their profits day by day through pro-active attack - be it destruction, theft or sabotage.."