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

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