How can you regulate UK supermarkets and not others? Would British business be at a disadvantage?
No. We're not calling for onerous regulation - simply an industry watchdog to introduce minimum standards to ensure supermarkets play fair and don't abuse their dominant position in the market. We want the watchdog to clean up the way our supermarkets buy goods overseas. Because UK supermarkets sell to UK consumers, they will all be affected by the regulation equally and therefore no-one will be disadvantaged.
Is ActionAid anti-business?
No. We believe multinational companies can be a positive force, bringing jobs and investment to communities around the world. But this investment must be managed well to ensure that it brings real benefits to poor people. We also need minimum standards to ensure that companies respect the rights of people and the environment wherever they work.
Aren't you just bashing a British success story?
ActionAid has no problems with businesses becoming successful. What we do have a problem with is when that success comes at the expense of workers' rights. Indeed, we question the idea that a business can be called truly successful when that so-called success partly depends on the exploitation of poor women workers in developing countries. Business can be both profitable and ethical.
But people love supermarkets: 32 million people use them every week.
We don't disagree that some people might love supermarkets, or that some people may not love them. We do disagree when supermarkets use their size and power to exploit workers and producers in poor countries. We believe that most of the 32 million people who shop supermarkets each week do not want the food, fashion or flowers they buy to be traded under conditions that mean women workers in poor countries cannot afford to feed themselves and their families properly, or force them to work for long hours in dangerous conditions.
Supermarkets are successful because they give people what they want – low prices and choice
When supermarkets do deliver low prices – like bananas at 65p a kilo or jeans for £3 a pair – too often it comes at the expense of vulnerable women workers in poor countries. Supermarkets are so successful partly because their business model depends on the exploitation of workers and producers in developing countries.
ActionAid believes most people do not want their food and clothes to be so cheap that it means women workers in poor countries are not able to feed themselves properly. People care about ethics too - 65% of us bought fairtrade goods in 2006. A supermarket watchdog would help reassure that shoppers that all their goods were traded in a more ethical way.
Shouldn’t we be supporting UK farmers?
Many of the goods sold by UK supermarkets cannot be produced in the UK. But also, the British farmers we work with who also want to curb the supermarkets' power believe, as we do, that there’s room in the UK for goods from developing countries that are traded ethically and sustainably.
Supermarkets give plenty to charity, why are we accusing them of not caring about the poor?
Many supermarkets do donate generously to charity, but it's also true that schemes like computers for schools will not improve the shocking conditions endured by women workers who produce the goods that big retailers sell in their stores. Changing this situation will require more than just charitable donations from supermarkets.