Day 138 - 20 Jun 95 - Page 52
1 or a special inducement to the workforce to vote in favour
2 of Ralph Kelly as opposed to the union was a celebrity
3 visit by Earl Campbell, who was a well-known football
4 player; what comment do you have about that on McHappy Day,
5 I think?
6 A. Yes. McHappy Day is something that during that period
7 of time was an annual event that took place in Michigan,
8 Illinois, other states, in, frankly, all of Canada as well
9 -- it originated as a Canadian thing. What it was, it was
10 a charitable event where you invited celebrities, if you
11 will, it could be local politicians, it could be athletes,
12 actors, actresses, to visit stores.
13
14 The purpose of it was that we are trying to get additional
15 customers to come to our stores on that day, and a portion
16 of the sales were donated to charity. So, these folks, in
17 general, were supporters of the charity that the money
18 would be going to and volunteered to come in and
19 participate, so that customers knew they would be there.
20
21 Q. Was Earl Campbell a local hero?
22 A. Yes, what was -- he was a local hero in Detroit
23 although he played for a different football team than
24 theirs, but he was a national hero, if you will.
25
26 Q. Mr. Stein, the important question: Was this visit by Earl
27 Campbell set up specially as way of persuading the
28 employees to vote for Ralph Kelly in the election?
29 A. No. He took no part in the election whatsoever. There
30 was no -- nothing to do with unions with his visit.
31
32 Q. What about McBingo? What is McBingo, for a start off?
33 A. McBingo is a training tool. It is used -- I do not
34 know if bingo is played in the UK where you call out -----
35
36 Q. Yes, it is.
37 A. OK. The way it works at McDonald's is there are
38 specific training prerequisites that are set out for each
39 station and, as people have demonstrated that they qualify,
40 they meet the standards, they receive, if you will, numbers
41 or we call them -- what was the money called -- it was
42 called -- we have not done these for a while; they are were
43 very popular back then -- McDollars or something like
44 that. They would accumulate so much money over the
45 training period. There would be a targeted training period
46 of time. It might be two months, three months, four
47 months. As people became proficient in various areas, they
48 would earn, not real money, but other currency. Then that
49 would culminate ultimately in people in a raffle, if you
50 will, where people can pledge so many dollars to buy
51 certain t-shirts or things like that.
52
53 Q. Was this something that was specially put on during the
54 course of this election campaign or not?
55 A. Yes, it did fall during that campaign, but it also fell
56 in all the other stores in that Detroit area. It had long
57 been scheduled.
58
59 Q. My fault, I did use the word "specially". What I meant by
60 that was, as a special inducement to the workers to vote
