Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 40
1 very, very prescriptive. We say it is basically a
2 disciplinarian, authoritarian management culture in the
3 McDonald's store and that it is not a quirk of the few
4 stores we have managed to find but it is absolutely
5 fundamental to their entire policy as set out in their
6 handbook and elsewhere.
7
8 I don't know if you want to have a break this afternoon.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, we will have the break now.
11
12 (Short Adjournment)
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If you take your Heathrow figure and
15 multiply the 3.35 by 37.7, you get £126.30. If you take
16 the higher figure, 3.43, and multiply it by 39, you get
17 £133.77. If you take the £4.26, I think it was, which was
18 voted at the Labour Party Conference against the wishes of
19 the leadership, if the newspaper reports which I read were
20 accurate, you get £160.60 for 37.7 hours and £166.14 for
21 39.
22
23 There you are. I am not asking you to follow it up. It is
24 just that I am just declaring that I have done those sums.
25
26 MR. MORRIS: Whatever you do, by any judgment, we would say, it
27 is clearly massively low paying, and that is even without
28 even looking at the McDonald's ----
29
30 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I did not do is divide £224.50 by 39 or
31 37.7.
32
33 MR. MORRIS: I think it is £5.50 or something. Anyway....
34
35 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Anyway, you got to 17.36, the handbook and
36 Mr. Pearson's view that it could be described as very, very
37 prescriptive.
38
39 MR. MORRIS: Yes. He then goes on to the David Magee incident,
40 which I will not go into in any kind of detail because I am
41 sure you can read it for yourself. Here we have a snapshot
42 of the difficulty of anybody, even somebody who is keen and
43 assertive, goes to a union official, the union official
44 provides him with help and you have the difficulties facing
45 somebody in what he says, and his evidence was given,
46 Mr. Magee, was a hostile, a company that was hostile to
47 unions and the complete inadequacy of the protection that
48 the union can give to somebody in that situation, as
49 Mr. Pearson candidly accepted, because of the difficulty in
50 basically nailing the employer and negotiating with the
51 employer, whatever, without leading to somebody having
52 their job put at risk.
53
54 And for Mr. Pearson's note, it appears that unions are very
55 responsible and cautious in that respect, that they have
56 the wishes of the member foremost rather than a dispute for
57 the sake of it.
58
59 It might be a point to note that Mr. Magee was concerned
60 with work place conditions - that is the bottom of page
