Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 10


     
     1        in the paragraph in the fact sheet, is contrasted with the
     2        previous sentence that they say they are providing jobs for
     3        school leavers and take them on regardless of sex or race,
     4        the point being that we are not saying, or the fact sheet
     5        is not saying, that the only thing McDonald's are
     6        interested in the whole world is recruiting cheap labour.
     7        It is certainly one of the main things they are interested
     8        in.  But it is saying that when they say they are providing
     9        jobs for school leavers and take them on regardless of sex
    10        or race, what they really mean is they are looking for
    11        cheap labour rather than they are doing anybody a favour.
    12        They try to give the impression that they just have some
    13        kind of boundless benevolent regard for the needs of school
    14        leavers and women and black people when in fact what they
    15        are doing is taking advantage of those people who have got
    16        few, or fewer, job options in society.  So that is on
    17        that.
    18
    19        Moving on to the evidence of Mr. Beavers, who was
    20        McDonald's, as we all know, the first Plaintiff's, lead
    21        witness and extremely experienced, who had worked in the
    22        field, and, in contrast to Stan Stein who was a lawyer,
    23        taken on as a lawyer, who, in our opinion, was taken on by
    24        McDonald's mainly as a union buster or union preventer and
    25        general overseer of effectiveness of personnel policies but
    26        without any grounding in what happens in reality at store
    27        level beyond that, obviously, in contrast to Mr. Stein, who
    28        was an extremely experienced advocate for McDonald's line
    29        against unions and the related matters and obviously very
    30        well briefed, Mr. Beavers was more open and more credible
    31        in many ways because...  I am not saying that he was very
    32        credible in many ways, either, but more credible than Stan
    33        Stein who -- well...
    34
    35        I mean, in the USA, really, we did not have the same level
    36        of information that we had about the UK, but -- I think the
    37        only actual, real live crew person who had been a crew
    38        person in America was Mike Soriano, our witness.  Although
    39        he dealt with the union issue, it was clearly in response
    40        to conditions of work.  So that would be a particularly
    41        relevant body of evidence.  Obviously, we have also
    42        documentation about turnover and wage levels and stuff
    43        which I am going to refer to in a minute.
    44
    45        So Mr. Beavers on day 4, pages 50 and 51, admitted that
    46        McDonald's workers started at the legal minimum wage of
    47        $3.35 per hour.
    48
    49        In fact, I will digress there and go on to the chart which
    50        had the average hourly rate in the States.  The $3.35 was
    51        actually the minimum wage up to April 1990, when it was
    52        increased to $3.80, according to the McDonald's figures,
    53        which always contain an element of unreality when we get
    54        their statistics.  The minimum wage on that chart, and I
    55        don't know the reference, but I can -- I am not going to
    56        refer to this in great detail but I will make some general
    57        points.  It is page 76 in one of the bundles I have.  It is
    58        called the 'average hourly rate'.  It is McCopco Stores in
    59        the States.
    60

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