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Dave's Part: Tesco Express Opens in Dalston
Dave Osler has a useful post on the latest Tesco Express opening. It's in Dalston. I agree with him. Apart from the surely satirical nonsense in the last paragraph about lamb price and Kenyan mange tout? I'll be doing a post about this particular Tesco of Dave's and perhaps the putative one just round the corner from the house of love next week. Probably Monday.
Tesco are OK on Unions encouraging Usdaw sign up; they pay NMW plus, with hols, sick pay, maternity and the like; they do proper health and safety and training; they have careers; are accountable for clear marking of origin; tend to have good stock, and feature offers and loss leaders - other than on mouldering old perishables.
In Dalston they are using the Job Centre for all recruitment. Excellent. When I worked for Manchester CC - in what the current leader Richard Leese annoyingly calls the chinese period, you know when the party decided the policy - we used to like Job Centre only. This meant our own residents and less over-qualified applicants and lower advertising costs for our people.
The independent retail sector vary. Some are really excellent on unions and wages and T&C and stock and ethics and all. Some are dire on all those things.
If it were a Co-op Late Shop it would be a consumer co-op and if Waitrose in effect a worker partnership. So those would be better.
The tescopoly lot are an extraordinary coalition. And whatever they may say they are mostly driven by Tesco-hate or selfish self-interest as competing shops. They rarely bother mounting a campaign against a micro Somerfield, Co-op, Nisa or even Sainsburys. I have yet to be persuaded they have a care for the workers - in shops, as shoppers, in the supply chain.
Many corner shops dream of becoming chains and doing a Tesco, yet they think local councils are there to protect one set of capitalists from another. Not so.
4 comments:
in the land of new labour we are all consumers,
schools churning out future consumers.
lets vote by text and e mail
all hail sky tv and the x factor.stay in your homes and consune so that you dont need to venture out at night and see rampant crime on the streets.
if we all stay home the they can cut the police numbers.
in nu labour land once you become 60 then you are on curfew unable to go out from dusk till dawn
Another top OT contribution BHT ... you have a good old Tesco at Baguley ... that busy-doing-nothing shyster John Leech claims to have prevented one in Stretford, leaving us at the mercy of Morrisons which is NOT, repeat NOT, the best grocer on the high street.
Chris this is getting silly. How about you back labour's policy and back the decision of the councillor that we are trying to get re-elected. All of this oppositionalist guff is just feeding the lib dems.
Sorry Anon. I don't take lectures from unidentified comrades. And I must say that if you are wanting to put out a fire you are choosing a very odd way of doing that. Chucking fuel on it. Strange.
I absolutely support the only legal grounds for opposition to this particular store - which is about 200 yards from my house. Where do you live?
Those grounds are that the existing and extra resulting traffic will over stress the current road layout and cause nuisance and perhaps reduce safety too. I clearly agree with my councillor and with the planning committee on that one.
These facts and fears clearly have to be dealt with in a level headed way. And as it goes whether a Tesco gets planning or not.
If Tesco can reach a solution on that and can make the site pay on the basis of the floorspace, parking and other requirements then I cannot see any other sensible legal objection.
The existing Esso is poorly run. The workers are poorly paid. There are breaks in the service to allow handovers. But no cover within shifts. Their management are on the end of a 'phone somewhere in the South of England.
The shop is also very poor in terms of stock and price. The cash machine requires a disproportionate payment and is often out of order.
A Tesco operation would be better in every measure of workers' terms and conditions and service that I can think of. And locally accountable including over traffic and nuisance.
Opposition to Tesco over other brands is completely ridiculous and utterly illegal. Our councillor has made it clear that she does not oppose Tesco in any way. So we agree on that too.
Opposition to convenience stores - this would not be a supermarket after all - is also ridiculous. There is a very bad one on the site already and a number elsewhere in the area.
Including a new Somerfield in Chorlton Park ward at a notorious accident hot spot and which utterly blights the desperate arcade of shops on Mersey Bank which John Leech and his henchmen have utterly failed to get a grip over.
Unlike Cllr John Leech my councillor is clear that there is no objection to convenience stores or indeed supermarkets.
My only real difference with the Labour position - though obviously not voted on, discussed or based on resident surveys - is this idea spun by the highest quality local shops that they are going to be put out of business by Tesco.
That is hogwash. We should not accept it.
If you disagree with what I write here in future and you have an alternative means of contacting me I suggest you pick up the 'phone or send an email.
But on this the blogger's not for turning. The closing down of debate in our party is a pet hate. The lack of effective party input on policy is a pet hate. And the willingness to be pulled hither and thither by small interest groups too is a pet hate.
Anonymous Stalinist comments goes without saying.
This site will be regenerated one day. I will not mind if it is using Tesco money - including to sort out the immediate road safety, including the crossing points and refuges - and I will probably use the shop if it opens. On the other hand I will not mind if it is not Tesco that does it.
In fact it would be a great location for a Co-op Late Shop.
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