Day 139 - 21 Jun 95 - Page 40


     
     1        -- he was, in any event, dealing with the matter at a
     2        pre-trial interlocutory stage, so what he said, I would
     3        have thought, would apply even more so now.
     4
     5        You have to have some basis.  These are not the words he
     6        used; he posed a twofold test.  But what it really boiled
     7        down to was, you have to have some reasonable basis in good
     8        faith for supposing that there is a ground for criticising
     9        McDonald's in a particular respect.
    10
    11        I have to say, for the moment, I cannot see anything wrong
    12        with an argument over the units, because anyone might
    13        say: "Look, it is all right people saying we would like
    14        union representation in our restaurant", but if a number of
    15        restaurants are run by the same company and the same man,
    16        it ought to be all in or all out; and, therefore, I can
    17        see, coming fresh to the jurisdiction of the NLRB, the
    18        point of deciding what the sensible unit is before you then
    19        see whether you have enough cards to justify an election
    20        and, if you have, having an election.
    21
    22   MR. MORRIS:  I mean, I do not agree with the NLRB position.
    23        Certainly, in Ireland, for example, the dispute in Ireland
    24        in 1979 was a successful strike and resulted in judgment,
    25        as has been heard, that McDonald's should recognise the
    26        union; even if a minority, even if a small minority of
    27        workers in a branch, in a store, chose to be represented by
    28        a union, they would have that right.
    29
    30        The point is, if McDonald's are going to make claims and
    31        Mr. Stein is going to make claims of no significant
    32        disputes, or no Labour Board rulings, or whatever, against
    33        McDonald's, then it is important to know where there were
    34        other disputes, but maybe they did not get past the first
    35        hurdle because of these particular rules.
    36
    37   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  He said he cannot remember a Hawaii or a
    38        New York dispute.  I am not going to find that McDonald's
    39        were anti-union because, quite in accordance with what
    40        appears to be the legislation in the United States, one or
    41        more of their franchisees takes the point, which it appears
    42        it is perfectly valid to take in the United States, that
    43        the proper unit is, for instance, all eight restaurants
    44        which a particular franchisee is running in an area, rather
    45        than just any one of them.
    46
    47        When we come to Ireland, I will consider Ireland afresh;
    48        and if you establish a case that Irish law is such and
    49        such, and that McDonald's was trying to get round the
    50        situation in an underhand way because, you would say, they 
    51        are anti-union, then I will consider that afresh. 
    52 
    53        Your "sweeteners" is another matter.  You have no basis for
    54        putting anything like that in Hawaii or New York.  All you
    55        have is a paragraph in the IUF publication which refers to
    56        Hawaii and New York, without even actually saying it was
    57        McDonald's in Hawaii and New York, and a witness in the box
    58        who says he does not recall anything to do with Hawaii or
    59        New York.
    60

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