The Socialist 4 August 2010

Con-Dem cuts mean: we need ‘biggest movement since poll tax’

We need 'biggest movement since poll tax'

'Radical' cuts require serious action

Waltham Forest's Labour council faces opposition

Coventry campaigners fight cuts of £140 million

Swansea trades council leads battle for services

Campaigners answer Bristol's 'Big Conversation'

Cuts news: Mental health services facing the axe

NSSN pledged to fight cuts

Troops out now!

Afghanistan: US strategy in disarray

Oppose divisive academies policy

Talks resume at British Airways

Angry workers strike over pay freeze and bosses' bonuses

Fighting fire service cuts

Witch-hunted Unison activist wins tribunal

Unite general secretary election

We won't be a lost generation, fight for jobs and education!

No to privatisation of our universities

For real jobs, not slave labour

Profiting from wrecking the environment

Stop the Cardiff incinerator

Save Wanstead Flats

Daily Mail admits guilt over smearing Tamil hunger striker

Campaigning at Leeds Pride

Book now for the summer camp!

Socialism 2010 - a weekend of discussion and debate

Love Parade catastrophe was entirely preventable

Garment workers demand a living wage

Asda profiting from low pay

Tories put profits before patients

Rich just carry on getting richer

Fast news

The howlers' world and ours

How the banks rip us off

Previous issues, etc

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Asda profiting from low pay

A DAMNING report was issued recently by the charity ActionAid on the "deplorable" pay and working conditions of Bangladeshi factory workers employed by British supermarket Asda - a subsidiary of US conglomerate Wal-Mart which makes £45 million a day in profit.

Wal-Mart/Asda pays on average less than one pound a day in wages to its garment workers in Bangladeshi factories, who are mostly women with children, and who have to work long hours.

ActionAid says that this rate of pay is equal to just 25% of the basic cost of living of the average Bangladeshi mother, and as a result many over-worked women are struggling to feed their children.

This means that the company's profits are directly taken out of the pockets of the poorest people on the planet, and out of the mouths of the world's poorest children.

The reason why companies like Asda can provide clothes so cheaply is because its costs are low due to garment workers' wages being below the poverty line.

"Asda claims to be a family friendly supermarket but there's a dark side to its operations. Families are being kept in poverty because Asda's wages are so low," said ActionAid's policy advisor.

In response Asda claims that it has been trying to improve the poor treatment of its workers in the Indian subcontinent, which begs the question: Why are they so disgracefully exploited in the first place? The answer, as usual with capitalist corporations, is profit.