Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 33
1 what he has been told is true. That is a different point
2 entirely.
3
4 MR. MORRIS: He is entitled to form an opinion based on it.
5 Being an expert of course he can evaluate things that he
6 hears and judge it against his own knowledge and
7 experience.
8
9 Anyway, trying to get through this, he talks on page 5
10 about staff expressing fear of joining a trade union at
11 McDonald's, and that links him to, I think, Mr. Turnbull's
12 evidence, as well, about how they had been contacted by
13 various McDonald's employees, but there was some fear about
14 being able to be open about the interest in unions.
15
16 He said on page 6, at the top -- this is Mr. Pearson --
17 "The main concentrations of low paid workers are in the
18 service industries, shops, hotel and catering
19 distribution." And in the middle of the page, he said:
20 "The law does not permit anyone with less than two years'
21 continuous service to claim for unfair dismissal unless it
22 is for racial or sexual discrimination and, in theory, for
23 trade union discrimination", although later he explains how
24 effectively it is very difficult to prove that. And
25 because of the turnover at McDonald's, we would say that
26 virtually all the staff -- because that is for full time
27 workers, need two years continuous service, and part time
28 workers need five years continuous service, so most of
29 McDonald's workers fall outside of legal protection, or
30 effective legal protection, in that regard.
31
32 Then on page 7, the Councils. He says that low pay
33 persists in catering. The Council's Euro definition of low
34 pay is the decency threshold set at less than 68 percent of
35 earnings in any affiliated country, which he calculated in
36 1992 to be £207 a week. Now, that is presuming -- I think,
37 he goes on to it later, I will come to it -- a certain
38 guaranteed minimum number of hours, which of course
39 McDonald's does not guarantee, and in any case their pay is
40 so well below that as to be well below any reasonable
41 definition of low pay.
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you remind me, if you can remember, was
44 that figure gross or what you take home?
45
46 MR. MORRIS: I am going to come to that. There was a
47 discussion about that, and we will come to that. I am sort
48 of doing is chronologically, because that is the only way
49 I can reasonably do it.
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
52
53 MR. MORRIS: So I had the impression it was gross, before
54 deductions. Then he says on that page, the next paragraph,
55 line 16, "But average earnings for all workers covered by
56 wage councils, including those in fast food, were £174 a
57 week". So even the lowest paid workers who are attempted
58 to be protected by wage councils' provisions, for a start,
59 they are well below the decency threshold, which is the
60 minimum for a decent wage. Secondly, not only is the
