Following the raids of gangmaster operations resulting in over 30 arrests, the Transport and General Workers' Union has highlighted the pressing need for a licensing and registration scheme for gangmasters to prevent unscrupulous operators exploiting people in the first place.
A Guardian article today reports on the appalling conditions and human rights abuses suffered by workers employed by a gangmaster operation which supplied Tesco and Safeway, among other retailers.
Home secretary David Blunkett has announced changes to the law will make it easier to prosecute companies who employ illegal workers. The change will also make it easier for legitimate business to keep within the law.
The Food Standards Agency has ordered an investigation into claims made by Which? magazine that chicken labelled fresh and on sale in supermarkets around the country could be as much as 20 days old.
The British Poultry Council fears that sales will be hit as a result of the allegations that chicken is often re-packaged and re-dated several times after initial packing. BPC's chief executive Peter Bradnock said that the organisation "strongly refutes the allegations" made by the consumer-advocate magazine.
A new alliance of campaigning organisations, calling for stricter controls over supermarket trading, has been launched.
Two years on from the introduction of the industry-led Code of Practice, the alliance, which includes Friends of the Earth, the National Federation of Women's Institutes, and the Small and Family Farms Alliance say that supermarket power should be regulated by an independent watchdog with real teeth.
The government has sanctioned a relaxing of the ban on out-of-town shopping centres. Retailers have voiced their support for the Draft Planning Policy Statement 6: Planning for Town Centres, as announced by the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, last week.
In related news, a loophole in planning laws, which allows supermarkets and warehouse-style stores to add extra floors without planning permission, is to be closed.
Waitrose, the supermarket division of the John Lewis Partnership, has announced that it will acquire 18 Safeway stores and one Morrisons store from Morrisons, subject to approval by the Office of Fair Trading. This is the largest single acquisition undertaken to date by the John Lewis Partnership.
In Business in the Community's second annual corporate responsibility index (Companies that Count [2487kB pdf]), Sainsbury's achieved the highest ranking for a supermarket chain (ranked 8th), followed by Safeway (15th) Marks & Spencer (18th) and Tesco (19th). Overall, food and drug retailers outranked all other sectors.
However, corporate social responsibilty measures have been dismissed as useless by organisations as diverse as Christian Aid, the New Academy of Business and Susten8, a London-based sustainability consultancy.
Christian Aid claims that CSR measures are mainly 'rhetoric' and a ploy to stave off regulation, and a New Academy of Business review suggests that CSR is losing credibility because it is not delivering results. Susten8's co-founder, Charlie OMalley, argues that 'CSR with large corporates [is] a waste of time,' because of the incremental nature of the changes it brings about, when what is really required is a completely new approach.
