Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 08
1 me about it.
2
3 MR. MORRIS: Going back to McDonald's exploitation of their
4 workers ----
5
6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, just let me catch up with my note.
7 (Pause) Yes.
8
9 MR. MORRIS: I think I have finished Mr. Nicholson, and I have
10 done the meaning, and that was where I was up to. Just
11 going back to meaning, the Plaintiffs have claimed that
12 McDonald's have adopted a policy of preventing unionisation
13 by getting rid of pro-union workers and preventing
14 unionisation. Obviously, the Crew Handbook policy of
15 preventing any kind of collective activity or independent
16 communication amongst workers is a policy of preventing
17 unionisation, amongst other things. So one could argue
18 that the leaflet could have said 'prevented unionisation by
19 banning any collective union type activity and by getting
20 rid of pro-union workers', so that the leaflet could have
21 been more defamatory. But it only specifies one particular
22 plank of their policy, which is the gross misconduct
23 leading to summary sackable offence, which Mr. Nicholson
24 defined talking to a union about conditions in the stores
25 as being.
26
27 So, if you are going to prevent unionisation then you would
28 do exactly what McDonald's has specified in their Crew
29 Handbook. I can't see any other method of preventing
30 unionisation that would be more effective and more
31 successful as telling every single worker that they cannot
32 do anything which would even remotely resemble any kind of
33 union activity, and you tell them that on the first day in
34 their official handbook, just in case they get the
35 slightest idea on the subject. Of course, if people do
36 carry out any of those things, they get disciplined and
37 eventually sacked, or indeed got rid of by some other
38 method, because their face does not fit.
39
40 It must take quite some courage to be a McDonald's worker
41 and make any contacts with unions or do any kind of overt
42 or even covert union related activity, and I think they all
43 deserve a medal for even considering it, considering the
44 environment at McDonald's workplaces.
45
46 Can I just say meaning 'N' says - this is McDonald's
47 pleaded meaning - something about taking advantage of the
48 existence of any specific union. It does not say anything
49 in the fact sheet about taking advantage of the lack of any
50 specific union at all. I think it is a small point, but it
51 is one of those "let us extend this as far as we can" kind
52 of points.
53
54 I am just having sort of mute thoughts on the meanings
55 here. Can I say, by the way, the 'taking advantage of' is
56 an inferential meaning, if it is anything. But that is in
57 the meaning 'N'.
58
59 On meaning 'O', just a thought about this, taking advantage
60 of the absence of a minimum wage in Britain to pay what
