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From: Jo Makepeace
Subject: SchNEWS Issue 439 - Friday 30th January
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 21:50:54 -0000
Organization: http://www.schnews.org.uk/
The Dis-Asda campaign - Old Kent Road, London
The Dis-Asda campaign on the Old Kent Road in South London, which has a colourful history of resistance to the authorities and Wal-Mart, is resisting final eviction. Over the last month, the building on Ossory Road (scheduled to be demolished and a brand spanking new Asda built in its place) has been boarded up, evicted, damaged by bailiffs and re-squatted. Plans by Wal-Mart/Asda for final eviction and demolition were foiled by campaigners on the 19th when bailiffs arrived to find barricades and a group of protestors who refused them entry. As of today (29th), however, out-numbered protestors have lost possession of the building, but continue to occupy the site with caravans.
The Old Kent Road already has a Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, McDonalds, and a Toys R Us, but what the 100,000 people who live nearby don't have are decent community facilities. Traffic, pollution and respiratory disease are at an all time high in the area, which also ironically has the lowest car ownership in London.
Wal-Mart's military-style economic empire has been achieved by undermining workers wages and rights. Employees are forbidden from joining unions and wages are pushed to a barely legal minimum. The low prices in their supermarkets are achieved by outsourcing work to low-wage, no-rights factories in poor countries.
Meanwhile, the Dis-Asda campaign awaits its inevitable demise, to make room for yet another superstore, low prices gained through exploitation, and those damn annoying yellow smiley faces.
more info at http://www.ossoryroad.org.uk (no longer active?)
info on Wal-Mart at http://www.walmartwatch.com
road protests 2004
| road protests (current)
| movement links