Shaming Saint Michael

Christopher Draper goes shopping…
by Chris Draper

ONCE upon a time I had a holiday job working in a Nottingham supermarket.  I fondly remember one particular day I did nothing but stick individual adhesive price labels on hundreds of boxes of Cornflakes. Nowadays shops programme prices into a computerised system that ultimately prints out individual bill-receipt at the till.  This Universal Product Coding (UPC) places a legal obligation on shops to ensure that the prices displayed on shelves are identical to those applied at the till.  As price alterations are almost invariably upwards staff must assiduously replace old shelf prices otherwise all customers at that store are systematically overcharged.  Overcharging continues until a customer finally notices and insists on rectification.  When items were individually priced it was simple to see if the price displayed on the till conformed with that on the item but UPC makes it much easier for shops to get away with overcharging and of course its in their financial interest to do so and my local, Llandudno, Marks & Spencer food department is a serial offender.

Over the last year I have been overcharged in this way on at least ten occasions, most recently yesterday (8.2.2017) and on the previous occasion just two weeks ago.  I also shop locally at ASDA and ALDI, the latter never overcharge and the former very, very seldom but Llandudno Marks & Spencer with deplorable regularity.  Even if you spot an overcharge you are required to go to another part of the store to a “Customer Service Counter” this is usually unmanned and you’re expected to wait until a passing assistant stops to help.  Usually I have to find someone myself to complain to.  Then you are required to empty out your shopping until the overcharged item(s) are located.  The assistant will then disappear to find the appropriate shelf price label before belatedly returning to admit that you have indeed been overcharged.  Then the overcharge will be dismissed as an isolated incident.  You are meant to feel grateful when you eventually get back the amount you were overcharged however if you paid by card then you are first required to produce it so the sum can be credited back on your account.  All the trouble and inconvenience is suffered by the customer whilst all illicit profit accrues to Marks & Spencer who, of course, have no system in place to recompense all those shoppers who previously paid the inflated price.

On every occasion I notice an overcharge I endure this tiresome ritual.  I’ve informed M&S HQ of this practice and on each occasion, always ask to speak a manager. I’ve also requested a “customer comment book” to formally record these incidents but I’ve been told none exists and each time I’m presented with a different “acting store manager”.  Invariably they claim ignorance and insist the store does not consciously overcharge but the regularity of such incidents evidences culpability. Utterly exasperated after the previous (January 2017) overcharge I left my contact details with “Craig” and requested that the store manager offer me an explanation of this continued discreditable performance.  The manager did not have the courtesy to reply. 

I could of course confine my shopping to Asda and Aldi but I’m now determined to challenge M&S overcharging.  Sometimes the store makes a gesture to deflect criticism (on the last occasion a bottle of wine) but this is not general practice.  I have now informed “Trading Standards” of this lamentable story but in truth UK law is predictably lax although both Tesco and Sainsburys have in the past been fined for overcharging.  In Connecticut customers overcharged are legally obliged to be given the item free not merely a refund of the excess charge.  Overcharging then costs the stores money whereas, perversely, M&S Llandudno profits by not giving this matter due care and attention.

Chris Draper's Answer to 'What did the EU do for Manchester?'

WONDERFUL!

Let's have more examples of how governments are really good for us on this allegedly anarchist website!

Or perhaps readers might instead consider a few facts, for example this list illustrating how the EU helps corporations transfer production to where the workers come cheapest!

Cadbury moved factory to Poland 2011 with EU grant.  Ford Transit moved to Turkey 2013 with EU grant.  Jaguar Land Rover has recently agreed to build a new plant in Slovakia with

EU grant, owned by Tata, the same company who have trashed our steel works and emptied the workers pension funds. Peugeot closed its Ryton (was Rootes Group) plant and moved production to

Slovakia with EU grant.

British Army's new Ajax fighting vehicles to be built in SPAIN using SWEDISH steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with EU grant, rather than Wales.

Dyson gone to Malaysia, with an EU loan.  Crown Closures, Bournemouth (Was METAL BOX), gone to Poland with EU grant, once employed 1,200.  M&S manufacturing gone to Far East with EU loan.  Hornby models gone. In fact all toys and models now gone from UK along with

the patents all with with EU grants.

Gillette gone to eastern Europe with EU grant.  Texas Instruments Greenock gone to Germany with EU grant.  Indesit at Bodelwyddan Wales gone with EU grant.  Sekisui Alveo said production at its Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park foam  plant will relocate production to Roermond in the Netherlands, with EU funding.

Hoover Merthyr factory moved out of UK to Czech Republic and the Far East by Italian company Candy with EU backing.  ICI integration into Holland’s AkzoNobel with EU bank loan and within days of the merger, several factories in the UK, were closed, eliminating 3,500 jobs Boots sold to Italians Stefano Pessina who have based their HQ in Switzerland to avoid tax to the tune of £80 million a year, using an EU loan for the purchase.

JDS Uniphase run by two Dutch men, bought up companies in the UK with £20 million in EU 'regeneration' grants, created a pollution nightmare and just closed it all down leaving 1,200 out of work and an environmental clean-up paid for by the UK tax-payer. They also raided the pension fund and drained it dry.

UK airports are owned by a Spanish company.  Scottish Power is owned by a Spanish company.

Most London buses are run by Spanish and German companies.  The Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to be built by French company EDF, part owned by the French government, using cheap Chinese steel that has catastrophically failed in other nuclear installations. Now EDF say the

costs will be double or more and it will be very late even if it does come online. 

Swindon was once our producer of rail locomotives and rolling stock. Not any more, it's Bombardier in Derby and due to their losses in the aviation market, that could see the end of the British railways manufacturing altogether even though Bombardier had EU grants to keep Derby going which

they diverted to their loss-making aviation side in Canada.  39% of British invention patents have been passed to foreign companies, many of them in the EU The Mini cars that Cameron stood in front of as an example of British engineering, are built by BMW mostly in Holland and Austria. His campaign bus was made in Germany even though we have Plaxton, Optare, Bluebird, Dennis etc., in the UK. The bicycle for the Greens was made in the far east, not by Raleigh UK but then they are probably going to move to the Netherlands too as they have said recently.

The EU was designed and exists to coordinate STATE legal power to compel with the predatory power of corporations to exploit. The varied court-jesters (Union Bosses, Labour Politicians, Green Apologists etc) who take money from the EU and see a good career in toadying are predicatbly lining up to sing the praises of their erstwhile masters.  I would expect anarchists to look beneath such exhortations and examine the underlying power relationships. The EU is fundamentally designed to oil the wheels of globalisation, why on earth do you think it is so keen to covertly tie up TTIP?

Of course there is a window dressing of concern for the environment, workers rights etc but if you were mugged and your assailant handed you back a tanner for a cup of tea would you be grateful?

Don't vote for any politicians ever and for anarchy's sake don't endorse the EURO SUPER STATE but DO VOTE "LEAVE"!

Baker's Union Strike Sheffield

ON April 1^st, the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) alongside other campaigning organisations, took part in a Fast Food Rights/Hungry for Justice protest alongside the BFAWU Bakers Union outside Downing Street. It was to protest at the Government’s new ‘Gimmick’ National Living Wage. The Tories tried to portray it as a real breakthrough for the low-paid but BFAWU President Ian Hodson attacked the hypocrisy of a ‘minimum wage’ that didn’t apply to workers under the age of 25.

But he also warned that unscrupulous employers would try to make their workers pay for the rise by cutting shift allowances and other premiums. This week, BFAWU members are on strike in two plants to fight the cost-cutting of 2 Sisters Food Group of companies. Workers will be taking their second 48-hour strike from Sunday at Pennine Foods in Sheffield, while the first 2-day action will start from Thursday at RF Brookes in Newport. The two strikes will be linked-up with Sheffield workers travelling to the Newport picket, where they will also be joined by PCS National Museum Wales strikers. Now Unite members at the company’s Pizza Factory in Nottingham are also balloting.

If the workers needed any inspiration, they only have to look to their own fellow BFAWU members at yet another 2-Sisters factory Gunstones, also in Sheffield last year, when workers won a pay rise after they took strike action for the first time ever. The NSSN will be on both picket lines over the next few days and have assisted with protests against M&S who are supplied by 2 Sisters. are determined to help build solidarity throughout the union movement to assist the BFAWU in winning more victories.

Pennine Foods Sheffield – Please send messages of support to john.higgins@bfawu.org / haroon.rashid@bfawu.org and donations: make cheques out to BFAWU and send to Pennine Strike Fund - BFAWU, Stanborough House, Great North Road, Welwyn Garden City, Herts AL8 7TA  Support Pennine Strike Facebook Group