I found this piece appeared in this blog while eating some fair trade chocolate (my translation): “the Mondragon group announces in its Website that it will sue whoever slander to him on the internet”.
The calumnies they talk about are about ETA etc., but this is encouraging to “stick your neck out”, as my lawyer teacher used to say, about what I knew of this group a few years ago, specifically of the chain of supermarkets it owns. For debatable reasons (and of course very very debated during the gathering of REAS (alternative economies networks) in Cordoba in 1997, where I first attended to the concept of struggling against capitalism), fair trade organisations were trying to introduce their coffee and sugar in big commercial surfaces, so it was necessary to negotiate with Eroski. We were sent the standard contract, the one they use with all small retailers and of course uses with small producers (specially locals, even baserritarras).
From what I remember, as of by heart, some of the conditions were:
– to give them an important amount of for free, ‘for them to test’ the profitability of the product.
– not to sell any coffee or sugar in any other store in a 15 kilometres radio from the Eroski supermarket where they were being sold.
– monthly payment for the ‘rent’ of the shelf. The price of the shelves depends on the height at which they are. Eye level is the most expensive.
– the both the wholesale and retail prices would be decided by eroski.
At that time fair trade could afford to reject these conditions. But this way we became aware of the abuse that local, and not so local producers, were subjected to. In words of a person in charge of the importer where I was a volunteer, “the only one they can’t mess around with is Coca Cola, but then, no one messes around with Coca Cola”. Then eroski sent a reviewed proposal of contrace, not so abusive, because they understood that fair trade products would attract a type of customer that was already realizing just how absent the cooperative spirit that had created the Mondragón group was.
I understand that the question of whether or not should fair trade products be sold in big commercial centres is still to be solved.
