TUC 2012 - The underhand tactics of supermarket giants

This year the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union will be moving a motion on the power of the supermarkets and the effect they have on all our lives.

Clearly the five or 10-minute speech will allow us to put forward our position on and our involvement in how supermarkets should be regulated.

But it will not allow us to lay before conference the devastating impact that they have had on thousands of people's lives.

I remember hearing at an International Union of Foodworkers conference about the damage that supermarkets were doing to less fortunate countries that grow the crops that we take for granted when they arrive at our dinner tables.

Moving supply from one family-owned business to another can mean the difference between starvation and survival, but nevertheless it is a sad reality of the power that these giant companies wield abroad.

But their impact has and continues to have catastrophic outcomes for thousands of workers in Britain.

Only last year we saw what can happen when a business like Marks and Spencers seeks to maximise profits on just one product.

It found that it could source pies a penny cheaper per unit by moving production to a nearby competitor of its former supplier - with the net effect that in excess of 200 workers from RF Brookes in Leicester were made redundant.

Two hundred families' lives blighted in an already deprived area, and all in the name of profit.

The 1p saving was not passed on to the consumer and despite victims writing to CEO Mark Rowlands the transfer took place.

Never a care for the workers whose livelihoods were curtailed - just a few empty promises from Mr Rowlands that failed to be delivered.

We have seen all sorts of underhand operations from the supermarkets in an effort to drive down the buying price.

We used to think of buyers as people who drove around in Mondeos or Vectras, trying their best to convince businesses to come on board, but the sad reality is that these people are now high-powered, highly skilled negotiators whose sole aim is to get supply at their price, not a penny more, irrespective of the effect on the supplying business and their employees.

In the baking industry Spillers, which was a major employer, ceased trading in 1979 as a direct result of discounts given to supermarkets.

Now we see suppliers having to offer financial inducements in order to keep their own orders or be faced with total removal to an opponent.

We see companies taking part in "sealed envelope" bidding - where they don't know how much their opponent has bid but they know they have to reduce the current price if they are to retain current business.

The net effect is that our members lose jobs, terms and conditions are cut to sustain this heinous practice, and supplying businesses go to the wall.

Generation after generation we have seen our high streets dwindle as family-owned shops disappear.

We have seen our town centres blighted as supermarkets go out of town. The one constant in the food industry is that the supermarket giants continue to flourish.

The government's proposal for a grocery ombudsman can only be beneficial if it has the teeth to act impartially where and when needed.

If not I suspect we will see another major supplier disappear from our industry and with it the competition that keeps food cheap.