Why we don’t want a Tesco in Fenham

By Roger of the Stop Fenham Tesco Campaign

Tesco are hell bent on building a supermarket in the middle of our hospital. We do have quite a lot of supermarkets and lots of grocers already. Many fenham residents are against it and some have been active in campaigning. The off licenses have been asking customers to sign a petition against it & petitions have also been distributed round the area. There have been lots of objections lodged with the council online.

Now that moral force strategies have been exhausted; we tried asking the council nicely and legally not to make this imposition on our community; the strategy of direct action remains on the table. Tesco have been defeated by direct action in Bristol and by the Imagine a Garden project in Brighton; by occupying the land; by making it fun and useful people exercised their power. Tesco have bought lots of land around the UK and the world and lots of councilors and politicians too. They use their purchasing power to pay the food producers less. They survey the competition and work out which ones they can put out of business then they charge as much as they can get away with. They all pay as little as they can get away with as well. A friend works there and is in the union who meet regularly but don’t exercise much power. Tesco are now a powerful grocer. I think the struggles for cheap food, for good quality food, for better pay, for more power to the workers and for the boycott of apartheid will be easier the less powerful the grocers are. These struggles build the self confidence of working class communities and build the conciousness that we can govern ourselves better than being governed by any council. The Zapatistas Councils of Good Government are an interesting example, as are the CNT systems during the Spanish Revolution. For more infromation, visit The Canny Little Library, Sundays 3 to 7, at the Star & Shadow, Byker!

The Canny Little Library is a small collectively run library stocking radical, informative, alternative books, including sections on politics, global struggles, film, DIY, info for action, Queer, anarchism, art, feminism, workers’ struggles and more.

Do you work at Tesco? Is it horrible? Visit Very Little Helps for support.

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