Asda-Wal-Mart

Asda: part of the Wal-Mart spy ring

Following an admission from US supermarket giant Wal-Mart that the company has employed some of its estimated 400 investigators to spy on groups who stand against them, enquiries by Freedom have uncovered a similar story at UK subsidiary Asda.

During the most recent major conflict between Asda and an outside body, a dispute between the company and the GMB led to bug detectors being deployed by unionists during negotiations to avoid surveillance by managers.

Walmart workers walk out on wildcat

Workers at a Wal-Mart in Florida went out on wildcat earlier this week over scheduling arrangements. According to both workers and the company, this is the first such action against the company ever to occur in the US.

Around 200 workers, or close to the entire shift, walked out of the store in Hialeah Gardens at 9am Monday.

Every little hurts - supermarket power in Britain

Richard Griffin explores the power of the supermarkets and finds a rapacious monster at our doors

Sittingbourne in Kent is not famous for much. It does though claim to have the longest High Street in Britain. If you had walked along it forty years ago you would have passed four fish mongers, seven butchers including a specialist pork one, no less than nine green grocers, four bakers and not a single supermarket (the first one arrived in the mid 1970s).

Worldwide report details brutal suppression of workers' rights

115 trade unionists were murdered for defending workers’ rights in 2005, while more than 1,600 were subjected to violent assaults and some 9,000 arrested, a report states. according to the ICFTU’s Annual Survey of Trade Union Rights violations, published today.

In addition, nearly 10,000 workers were sacked for their trade union involvement, and almost 1,700 detained states the ICFTU’s Annual Survey of Trade Union Rights violations, published today.

Asda Wal-Mart national strike ballot

GMB Asda Wal-Mart depots launch national strike ballot following refusal of collective bargaining rights and non payment of 2005 bonuses.

GMB shop stewards at a meeting today in Manchester voted unanimously to commence the balloting process for a national strike in Asda Wal-Mart to secure collective bargaining at the 20 distribution depots and to secure payment of the 2005 bonus and safe work rates.

12,000 say no to ASDA

Friends of Queen's Market is a campaign in Newham to stop the "redevelopment" of a highly valued local street market into an ASDA.

The campaign has just gone on-line with a new website (still under construction).

libcom.org is pleased to republish this short history of the campaign:

Events up to September 2004

Asda distribution depots set to strike

Workers at Asda distribution depots across the UK are set to strike.

The GMB union is balloting thousands of members in the company's 19 distribution depots which supply the entire supermarket depot, after talks over a dispute at the Dartford depot broke down late last week.

Queen's Market under threat

Queen's Market is under threat from a 'regeneration' project by Newham Council, but a group of campaigners is working to save it.

The 100 year old Queen's Market in London's Newham is a lifeline to local people. Over 150 stalls and shops provide work and affordable food to the area's many low-income residents.

Asda fined for anti-union bribe attempt

The supermarket giant Asda has been ordered to pay £850,000 in compensation to employees for unlawfully offering them a financial inducement to give up their union rights in a damning judgment by an employment tribunal yesterday.

Wal-Mart boss faces jail for tax evasion

Thomas Coughlin, the former vice-chairman of Wal-Mart may be jailed for up to 28 years and fined up to £750,000 after pleading guilty to fiddling his expenses.

Coughlin, a former close friend of the late Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, claimed to have been involved in a covert anti-union spying operation designed by the giant retailer, and to have taken the hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of vouchers as payment, he had previously claimed they were given to employees as bonuses.

The items bought, many with company gift cards included:

58 year-old Asda worker sacked for buying rolls

Fran Edwards, a 58-year-old employee of ASDA in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, has been sacked for buying some cut-price rolls and having £3 of her own cash in her pocket.

Ms Edwards has worked at the ASDA store for two years but had been off sick until recently while recovering from two operations. By having £3 cash in her pocket while working she was breaching ASDA cash handling rules.