Everyone should make an effort to do their shopping at woolies on tuesday. PR or otherwise there are many families struggling through drought. With farmers declining terms of trade it would be nice for those benefiting to give something back. Those cynical of Tuesday being a slow day should endevour to make it a busy one at woolies expense.
I'm not sure where all the margins are but the farmer is lucky if they get 20% of the retail price. Taking beef for example the farmer grows his animal for a year or more and gets $4/kg then within the next few days it retails for $20.

Those cynical of Tuesday being a slow day should endevour to make it a busy one at woolies expense

Well I see it as a win-win situation, so can't see a problem with it!

The CWA are not exactly a mob of rogues, so most of the money should
land up with needy farming families. Woolworths know that their
corporate image matters, they could easily throw the same money
at some rich advertising agency in Sydney. This way, the money
goes to a better cause!

Its not all gloom and doom about supermarkets either. Clearly
consumers are voting with their wallets, to achieve lower prices.
Thats their choice. Few supermarket chains own a lot of real estate
these days, you'll find that Westfield and other LPTs own all that.

Alot of the time farmers don't deal with supermarkets directly at
all, but with various supply chains. Milk for instance, goes
through large multinationals. I remember once hearing that milk
would increase by 5c, to pay growers more. When the truth came
out, 0.5c went to farmers, the other 4.5c went to milk companies.
I see that Woolies realise that they do need farmers to supply
milk, so have insisted that they are prepared to pay 3c more a litre,
as long as it goes directly to farmers and is not skimmed off by
the milk multi nationals.

Lastly, who owns Woolworths? I'd be surprised if the top 20 shareholders,
is not loaded with super funds. Those super funds
are owned by you all, who have superannutation. They compete with
one another to increase your earnings, so push CEOs to the limit.
If a CEO does not keep increasing profits, out the door he goes.

So the whole thing is like a dog chasing its tail really.

The discusssion around Woolworths is like trying to tie the hands of an octopus. The list of downright ruthless tactics that are implemented as a result of Woolworths behaviour is growing. In every area of supply and delivery of product they are busy reducing the effectiveness of any competition and reducing their costs by ANY MEANS POSSIBLE.
The reason why this payment to the Farmers via the CWA is a B/S PR tactic is because they have already taken the profits away from the Farmers to begin with. Bananas from Brazil, Cashews from the middle east, fish from the peasants of SE Asia. They placed huge pressure on agricultural supply areas to reduce prices Woolworths have to pay. Resulting in lot/batch feed cattle/pigs/chickens who are fed foodstuffs which are filled with antibiotics and hormones, plus any other rubbish material which puts weight on the animal. To consumers Who largely has little understanding of the implications of these activities to their health. Genetically modified food is another example of methods used to decrease the prices to Woolies. What does it do to health filling your body with hormones and antibiotics?
Either way they have already caused huge numbers of farmers to reduce the selling price of their product below the cost of production forcing the farmer into a loss situation, and if the farmer then tries to sell direct he becomes blacklisted by the buying agents and his market is further reduced.

Rodger Corbet is purely a hired gun, no better or worse than a mercenary going to war to fight the side which pays the most. Our super funds are the organisations who are the major share holders who apply pressure to ensure they make the profits and keep Joe Public investment in order and at the same time being the blood sucker that kills them.
It is a tight but vicious circle. Where is the integrity? Where is the belief in love of fellow man?
And we are he. We vote for the politicians who do not have the courage to make decisions based on equity.
God help us.

Mungo, you seem to have a problem with Woolworths buying "Bananas from Brazil, Cashews from the middle east, fish from the peasants of SE Asia.". This is exactly the type of attitude that keeps those countries poorer than what they should be. What is inherently wrong with Woolworths buying a cheaper product, given that customers on our end are willing to purchase those products?

As for "cattle/pigs/chickens who are fed foodstuffs which are filled with antibiotics and hormones", if this concerns you, don't buy meat there! If enough people do this, trust me, woolies will get the message that people don't want this. But if people are prepared to buy this, don't complain unless you're also going to try and rule out the majority of fast food joints too(or anything else that could conceivably be bad for you). Ultimately, people need to have this choice to make the decisions for themselves.

You also have a problem with profit seeking behaviour, and it's funny you think this way because this is the best way to apportion resources. If you can't make enough money to keep doing whatever occupation you're in, why are you still doing it?(given that there are many others to choose from) Similarly, if farmers/Woolies supermarket competitors can't cut it in the industry then this is a clear indicator that they shouldn't be doing what they're doing.

I'd also like to add here that "integrity" generally means honesty and sincerity, and that Woolworths are not being 'dishonest' at all in bargaining with farmers for their produce. It is not being dishonest to offer a price lesser than what YOU think is 'required by farmers' for their work. So I don't really see where you're coming from when you say "Where is the integrity?".

Yabby can't see the problem of the duopoly having so much power over farmers. He is not a farmer.

He assumes that we all have shares in these operations that control the supermarkets. We don't. My super funds don't.

Then neo-cons bleat on about how we can't go back to standards and regulations as Government regulations are "old fashioned" and so on. They refuse to see that we are not necessarily talking about going back. Besides, it is already impossible and too late to do so. We don't have Democracy any more. We have Oligarchy that pretends to be democracy.

A standard under Oligarchy involves numbers and shares, not people. One wonders if upon faces are the numbers: 666 rendering people cattle: not humans. We are ruled by the 7 deadly sins. Howard forces: 1. Lust: advertising is based on sex hunger 2.Gluttony: the epidemic of obesity 3.Greed/Avarice: ruthless gluttony and greed above all 4.Sloth/Laziness: too lazy to shop around: prefer convenience 5. Wrath/Anger: discriminatory offenses and security obsession 6. Envy: facilitates status fatigue and obsessive hunger 7. Vanity and narcissism, caused Lucifer to be struck to hell as Satan.

Yabby has no problem with that.
Global warming is hell.

saintfletcher: "Yabby can't see the problem of the duopoly having so much power over farmers. He is not a farmer."

Yup. Got it in one there mate. He admits that he's only a hobby farmer, yet he seems to believe that he has all the answers to all the problems facing the rural sector (i.e. open slather 'guest' labour). Mind you, he seems like a good bloke and I often agree with him on other issues :)

I'm not a farmer either, but I live in the bush and my business depends directly on farmers, their employees, and those engaged in associated value-adding industries (e.g. meat processing). In a pleasing recent development in my district, we've just seen the opening of a large IGA (independent franchise) supermarket in the main town, who have an explicit policy of sourcing local produce where possible.

Needless to say, this goes down extremely well with the locals - to the extent that Woollies are hurting and have lifted their game somewhat.