Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 39


     
     1        control over the whole process.  And he says, when you
     2        marry that up with the HSE report - that is at line 31 on
     3        page 14 - about McDonald's culture tending to place
     4        customer service ahead of staff safety in order to maximize
     5        sales, link it up with the need to minimise staff costs
     6        then staff will come second best twice, to customers and to
     7        finely tuned cost control mechanisms.
     8
     9        I would like to say about Mr. Pearson I got the impression
    10        he was a very cautious expert.  Some of his things,
    11        I thought, were too cautious.
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Well, they may be none the worse for that.
    14
    15   MR. MORRIS:   I think that contained within these cautious and
    16        carefully worded criticisms, are actually quite fundamental
    17        criticisms of McDonald's which hit at the heart of their
    18        working practices.
    19
    20        I mean, an example of his caution would be his view on
    21        page 16, line 14, that he supports the right of people to
    22        put posters up and distribute leaflets and organise
    23        unauthorised meetings and collect subscriptions, et cetera,
    24        but he says that they should -- provided such activities do
    25        not take place during an employee's actual working time,
    26        with that proviso he thinks those bans are Draconian, that
    27        is the word he used, implies that all the time on the
    28        premises, including unpaid break time, is time over which
    29        the company has authority to determine the nature of trade
    30        union activity.  I think this is Draconian and excessive.
    31
    32        And I would say that people should have the right to do
    33        those things whenever they want to, as a basic human right,
    34        as long as they are not thereby, you know, sabotaging the
    35        production process or something, where everything will
    36        break down.  But, I mean, that is up to the decision of the
    37        person involved.
    38
    39        Anyway, sometimes those things are more important than the
    40        production process.  For example, they may need to organise
    41        a meeting because someone has been victimised in some way
    42        or another and that is much more important than carrying on
    43        producing hamburgers until it is resolved.  Or health and
    44        safety, for example, I mean, that certainly overrides any
    45        production concerns when there is a safety matter that
    46        needs to be addressed, and it may need a meeting to be
    47        organised immediately.
    48
    49        Then he says on page 17, line 36, in a very cautious way:
    50        One might well argue that employees faced with this
    51        handbook, this also includes references to McDonald's
    52        gearing their handbook towards young people, and some of
    53        the kind of -- I think he implies patronizing way, for
    54        example, they say we have no objection to people dating one
    55        another, crew employees dating one another, as if it is any
    56        of their business anyway -- he says:  One might well argue
    57        that employees faced with this handbook would find it very
    58        prescriptive.
    59
    60        If I may just try to use a neutral approach to this issue,

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