Day 184 - 06 Nov 95 - Page 51
1 that, is what you said, you should put it down, yes?
2 A. No, I just said: "If you feel you are misinformed,
3 anything like that", there were green sheets up in the crew
4 room which was the application form and they had, "if you
5 feel" -- and it is was right in the green sheets, the union
6 sheets, the reasons -- "if you feel any of these reasons
7 apply to you, please write a letter to this address". So
8 what Chris Broom and Michelle and I did was just ask the
9 people who signed the petition if they want to write a
10 letter.
11
12 Q. If we just look at that 1690 letter, the reason on this one
13 given is in the middle sentence: "I was misinformed about
14 our benefits being taken away, for example, our half price
15 food and paid breaks" which is identical to the one we
16 looked at before said about half price food and paid breaks
17 being taken away. Does that help you to remember where
18 that threat to take away half price food and paid breaks
19 may have come from?
20 A. The only thing -- I do not know why, like, they all
21 wrote the same thing, but it was, you know, we all, by the
22 time we started writing the letters we knew everything had
23 to be negotiated. Now, they decided that they were only
24 going to mention these benefits, or that these benefits
25 were the most important to them, I am not sure, but I never
26 wrote in my John Doe letter any of this, like, any of that,
27 you know, our benefits being taken away, or anything like
28 that. I never put any of that in the letter. I strictly
29 referred to the green application sheets that were sent in
30 to our store.
31
32 Q. It did not mention half price food and paid breaks though,
33 did it, in this green sheet?
34 A. No, but that is what I mean, that is what they felt.
35 If -----
36
37 Q. So the intervenors thought that benefits were going to be
38 taken away, or there was a strong possibility that
39 benefits, so-called benefits, were going to be taken away,
40 as a result of the union getting established at the store?
41 A. Not that they were going to be taken away but that they
42 would have to be negotiated.
43
44 Q. They do not say anything about negotiated here?
45 A. But it is not my fault like, it is not my fault what
46 they wrote down. I cannot -----
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We cannot -----
49 A. -- I cannot help it if they are going to write down
50 "negotiate" or not. I cannot tell them what to write
51 down. This was all up to them. If they are going to use
52 the word "taken away" instead of "negotiated", I cannot do
53 anything about it
54
55 MR. MORRIS: You put in your statement: "We could lose the
56 benefits we have".
57 A. We could lose, which would mean negotiations, which
58 would mean we could keep them or we could lose them. There
59 is a possibility. I did not say it was a hundred per cent
60 for sure that we would lose them.
