Day 138 - 20 Jun 95 - Page 23


     
     1        around 1989/90 in Philadelphia, USA, in response to a
     2        community campaign over wage rates at McDonald's, the First
     3        Plaintiffs", that is the Corporation in this case,
     4         "prepared an antiunion strategy in case employees began to
     5        join."   Do you remember, Mr. Stein, a community campaign
     6        (as it is called) over wage rates at McDonald's in
     7        Philadelphia in 1989/90?
     8        A.  Yes, I do.
     9
    10   Q.   Tell us how that originated and who originated it?
    11        A.  There was a local grass roots organisation that was
    12        also acting as a union.  It called itself PUP, commonly,
    13        P-U-P, Philadelphia Unemployment -- I forget what the other
    14        "P".
    15
    16   Q.   "Project"?
    17        A.  "Project", there you go.  It was commonly known as
    18        "PUP" -- that would be how I would refer to it -- and they
    19        began a campaign within the Philadelphia area to attempt to
    20        organise McDonald's restaurants.
    21
    22   Q.   Did they make a comparison of McDonald's rates of pay in
    23        different parts of the city?
    24        A.  What they did was, as part of their campaign, they
    25        attempted to make wages a key issue, if you will, and they
    26        began to publicise in the media a claim that we paid a
    27        dollar more, that McDonald's paid a dollar more, in the
    28        suburbs than it did to the city workers.  That was their
    29        claim.
    30
    31   Q.   Was there any political implication in that claim or not,
    32        suburbs versus inner city?
    33        A.  Yes, what they are trying to do is bring people in to
    34        support them.  They are trying to create racial indignation
    35        because the suburbs in the Philadelphia area are
    36        principally white and the city area is principally
    37        minority, a principally black minority, if you will.
    38
    39   Q.   If I have understood it correctly, the assertion was, in
    40        effect, that McDonald's was exploiting black people in the
    41        inner city?
    42        A.  That is the essence of their claims.
    43
    44   Q.   Can you find -- I am afraid it is a new file, Mr. Stein --
    45        number XIV?
    46        A.  Yes, I have it right here.
    47
    48   Q.   Turn, please, to tab 81.  This, as you can see, Mr. Stein,
    49        is entitled:  "Wage abuse in the fast-food industry".  It
    50        purports to have been issued by the Philadelphia 
    51        Unemployment Project.  You see that in typescript at the 
    52        bottom of the page? 
    53        A.  Yes, sir.
    54
    55   Q.   There is an artistic box in the middle of the page:  "Never
    56        before have so many earned so little from so few."  It says
    57        that it is a study comparing conditions in suburban and
    58        inner city fast-food restaurants in the Delaware Valley,
    59        which is Philadelphia; is that right?
    60        A.  Yes, that is correct.

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