formation from getting "buried"? How do we deal with the obsession with "new" info, where people only read or ac-
cess the latest bit of information about a certain company? Often disputes about a certain violation of workers’ rights
drag on, and it is precisely the older cases that do not get solved that in fact are the most urgent.

Another question we have to ask ourselves is to what extent information, which is being put on-line (on the web, or
in a database), should be centralised and unified. Will groups in other cities and countries use the same standards?
To what extent is it desirable to have workgroup software, with a shared interface and tools? So far, e-mail has
proven to be a very effective and cheap medium for internal communication and coordination. But this seems obvi-
ous by now. The question really is about the architecture of our own database, archives and websites.

For the future we think about net.radio projects, a database that is easy to use and expand by the different campaign
organisations, linking Clean Clothes communities to digital cities, creating action opportunities using the compa-
nies very own websites, targeting on-line shoppers, intercepting them in their virtual space just as we used to tar-
get consumers entering stores in city centers...

The Clean Clothes Campaign PO BOX 11584 1001 GN Amsterdam +31-20-4122785
4+31-20-4122786 ccc@xs4all.nl_http://www.cleanclothes.org

HOW TO MAKE A POINT -
SUPERMARKET CLUBCARD
AS POLITICAL ORGANISER

thas been a preoccupation of mine in imagining the supermarket as a locus for political assembly. Clearly, it has al-
ready overtaken religious assembly. In the UK the big brand Supermarkets like TESCO and SAINSBURY are principle or-
ganisers of daily life. The ritualised relationship between customer and supermarket have been carefully constructed
and maintained to a degree that compares to the construction of religious faith. Church and Supermarket have long
been rivals for share of sunday moming customer with the Church losing out considerably to the out-of-town
Supermarket. The Church has conceded that Goods and God will he worshipped in the appropriate modem temple.
its a privatised relation between customer and supermarket with no mass communion as such. The introduction of
loyalty cards facilitates a simple exchange - personal data for points. The indexical reference to individual shop-
ping habits means that customers are now assembled next to each other on a database, highly categorised and
searchable.

Since the BSE fiasco and wide criticism of the food industry, the UK public is losing its faith in the Supermarket but
dependency is entrenched. The Supermarket is starting to emerge as a highly politicised force for social engineer-
ing, particularly as the UK Government is now collaborating with Supermarkets to analyse their loyalty card data-
hases in tracking Genetically Modified food consumption. ‘Information on GM foods would be made available “in a
form that can be analysed on a product by product basis at postcode level.” Using health databases the information
would be used to find out whether eating GM foods is linked to illness.’ (Friends Of The Earth Jan 99)

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