Day 199 - 11 Dec 95 - Page 16
1 guidelines that included a promise not to interfere further
2 with the employees' rights.
3
4 If that was the stick, the carrot was the contests and
5 celebrations and parties designed to show the workers
6 that 'Mickey D's" -- Mickey D's I think is American
7 slang -- "really was a great employer, and that the workers
8 would certainly suffer the loss of these sorts of special
9 benefits if they voted for the union. Most prominent in
10 memory was 'McHappy Day' which occurred just a few days
11 before the election at which time a very famous
12 professional football star named Earl Campbell was brought
13 in by management to give a pep talk about why it was
14 unnecessary to have a union (Campbell's own union -- the
15 National Football Players Association -- lambasted publicly
16 for doing so).
17
18 Campbell's visit astonished many workers but no more so
19 than the 'disco' sponsored by the Company one (or perhaps
20 two) nights before the election. All of the workers
21 illegible to vote (approx. 150) were bused to the disco and
22 I am pretty sure (though not absolutely) that those who
23 missed shifts because of their attendance at the disco were
24 paid as if they had worked. To substitute for these absent
25 workers other McDonald's Restaurants assigned some of their
26 own employees from unaffected franchises (that is, not
27 owned by Kelly and thus not eligible to vote) to work at
28 the three Kelly franchises. It was well understood by the
29 workers that the only reason for such attention was the
30 upcoming union election.
31
32 In the end, the two-pronged strategy produced a victory for
33 the Company. Our supporters could not hold on to their
34 co-workers in the face of constant meetings with
35 management, inducements and fear. The union support went
36 from having two-thirds signed up on cards to receiving just
37 one third in the election. The Company won a grand victory
38 in their eyes, but not without having had to break the law
39 at least a few times and, more importantly, having
40 repeatedly broken the spirit of fair play that is supposed
41 to obtain in American industrial relations.
42
43 There are other stories from other McDonald's but they are
44 not quite so vivid and, in any case, would just repeat the
45 basic outlines of what I have written. The material
46 resources of a huge multinational corporation were brought
47 to bear in a most antagonistic fashion against a small
48 group of young workers. I do not believe that McDonald's
49 can feel at all proud of their behaviour in Detroit in
50 1980.
51
52 Let me state in closing that I am willing to testify for
53 the Defence to the facts outlined in the above statement.
54 Sincerely, Daniel Cantor." That is dated 27th October
55 1993.
56
57 MR. MORRIS: We cannot find one of our documents that goes with
58 the New Zealand trade union representative statements. I
59 do not know if the Plaintiffs have a copy?
60
