Day 199 - 11 Dec 95 - Page 07
1 Q. "So far as I was aware, there was no official McDonald's
2 rule which prevented any employee of the Company from
3 joining a union. If anybody had joined a union and had
4 kept completely quiet about the fact, I believe they would
5 have been left alone. Even if management were aware that a
6 person was a member of a union, they would not necessarily
7 dismiss that person so long as he/she remained 100 per cent
8 dormant. However, a union member who became active in any
9 way would not last long at all.
10
11 For example, if that member starting to try to recruit
12 other crew members in the union or starting trying to
13 organise employees in some way that was not in the interest
14 of management he/she would mostly find his/her employment
15 at McDonald's short-lived".
16
17 Did the company speak to you about unions at any time?
18 A. During our training in induction when we joined
19 McDonald's, we were told that basically McDonald's were not
20 anti-union but that the way McDonald's was set up, there
21 was really no need for there to be any unions there because
22 of their open door policy, where any crew member could, in
23 theory, go along to any member of management, and also
24 through their rap sessions where they could air any
25 grievances. They felt because of the way they run their
26 operation that there was really no call for them to even
27 want to be in a union in the first place.
28
29 Q. Why do you say then your impression that they were
30 anti-union or they would not tolerate?
31 A. It was, sort of, implied in the way it was put across
32 that unions were basically -- unions at McDonald's would
33 not get on.
34
35 Q. "I think it is fair to say that unions were an 'unspoken
36 taboo'. McDonald's would never admit to the fact that
37 unions were taboo. In fact, they publicly state that they
38 allow their employees to be members of a union. However,
39 the reality behind this is very different and the system
40 operates in such a way that any active member of a union
41 will not be tolerated. The system will simply not support
42 crew members who adopt a position contrary to management.
43
44 Most of the crew in my store were generally made to feel as
45 though they were fully expendable. According to the theory
46 of McDonald's training, if a crew member was not doing what
47 he/she should, management were supposed to file a report,
48 give a warning or discipline the member of staff. This
49 process was meant to be carried out in private, the crew
50 member having been taken off the floor, into the Manager's
51 office and the misdemeanour discussed with him/her away
52 from rest of the crew. In fact, the reality was that an
53 errant crew member would just be given repeated toilet
54 duty". Can you just explain what that is?
55 A. If you had a troublesome crew member, you would just
56 give them nasty jobs to do all the time, i.e. if they were
57 coming in in the morning, you would make them do filtering
58 every time they came in, i.e. filtering all the --
59 recycling, filtering all the machines out, or you would put
60 them on lobby or you would put them on any area that you
