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Hard
discounter of headband fame attacked by suppliers: Lidl distribution centres in northern and eastern Germany were blocked by angry farmers in the early morning hours yesterday. Supported by their union, they said that the low milk prices paid by Lidl and Aldi have destroyed the perspectives for their future. Some 120 farmers blocked the entry roads to Lidl's central distribution centre in Buchholz south of Hamburg while 150 farmers closed the traffic to the Aldi centre in Horst, in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. Also food safety and animal rights are in danger The farmers' protest is directed at the continuous price wars in German retailing, which are driven by the two hard discount chains and US multinational giant Wal-Mart. In addition to threatening the future of farming in Germany, an exaggerated pressure on producer prices can put food quality and safety at risk and once again lead to long animal transports. Farmers have expressed great concerns also in Switzerland, where both Aldi and Lidl are in a process of installing themselves. They are afraid that food production can become impossible in this country where farms are normally small and costs are quite high. Particularly Lidl is infamous for its brutal behaviour towards suppliers and business partners, which was recently illustrated by its advertising agency Economia terminating its contract with the hard discounter. The web log installed by UNI Commerce affiliate ver.di has been practically overflowing with first-hand reports about how badly the company treats its workers and how far it is prepared to go to keep them out of their trade union. Lidl's headband affair was the retailing scandal of the year But also outside Germany, Lidl's employer behaviour is ethically unacceptable. A major scandal shook up the hard discounter last year, when it was said to demand that its women workers in the Czech Republic wear special headbands for their monthly periods, if they want to go to the toilet during working hours. The story was first carried by the Czech press, but also UNI Commerce contacts in the country have said that they believe that this had really happened. The Lidl management has, of course, denied this, including in a letter written to UNI Commerce and published on this website. Lidl has now broken its long silence and started to appear in media, in an attempt to defend itself. The first experiences were not all that successful - when CEO Klaus Gehrig tried to tell the press that his company is actually behaving like everyone else, there was an irritated reaction from some of the major competitors: Speak for yourself, they said. Indeed, as far as UNI Commerce is informed, Lidl is the only leading retailer which forbids its workers to go to the toilet during working hours. Coincidentally, when the Lidl headband scandal was at its height, UNI Commerce hosted a meeting at its headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, with senior executives from a number of Europe's leading retailers. They did find it difficult to hide their amusement when they heard the headband story, although they were also irritated at the competitor for - as they said - destroying everybody's reputation in these new markets. - Not in my company, one of them said, our workers go to the toilet when they need to, and we don't tell them when they can and when they cannot.
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