Day 174 - 17 Oct 95 - Page 26


     
     1   MR. MORRIS:  The only meetings you had with the union were in
     2        the circumstances of -- towards the end of the strike and
     3        the Labour Court's recommendations to negotiate with the
     4        union; those were the only meetings you had with the union?
     5        A.  Yes, that is correct.  We had a meeting with Mr. Mullen
     6        prior to the Labour Court meeting, the Labour Court
     7        recommendation.
     8
     9   Q.   To try and resolve the dispute?
    10        A.  Yes.
    11
    12   Q.   Then you spent months of prevarication after the dispute,
    13        avoiding carrying out the recommendations of the Labour
    14        Court to allow the union to represent, physically
    15        represent, its members at the store?
    16        A.  If I understand you correctly, Mr. Morris, I think you
    17        have indicated two questions there.  The first one is that
    18        you indicated that we did not carry out the recommendations
    19        of the Labour Court, which is not correct; we did; we took
    20        the workers back to work, and I believe -- can you repeat
    21        the second part of your question?
    22
    23   Q.   The dispute was partly about union recognition, and that
    24        was 100 per cent successful; the strikers won the right to
    25        be represented by a union; that was the Labour Court
    26        decision, was it not?
    27        A.  Yes.  The workers, the people who were on picket, the
    28        workers who were members of the -- yes.
    29
    30   Q.   Then, following the dispute, apart from one meeting which
    31        you call "informal", which seemed to be right after the
    32        Labour Court decision, following that, you avoided meeting
    33        the union like the Plague?
    34        A.  No, that is not correct to say.  They did not indicate
    35        what business they wanted to discuss, other than they were
    36        a cumulative -----
    37
    38   Q.   They were indicating is something working; the National
    39        Understanding, is it being implemented, is it not being
    40        implemented.  These are all valid union concerns, are they
    41        not?
    42        A.  Well, they are valid concerns of any worker,
    43        Mr. Morris.
    44
    45   Q.   Yes.
    46        A.  But the situation was that the implementation of the
    47        second phase had been put in place, and we indicated that
    48        we had done that to the union.  They had not brought up any
    49        other point except, as you say, Sunday pay.  Sunday pay
    50        that we were paying was in line with and probably exceeded 
    51        many areas of catering, but certainly was in line with 
    52        labour laws. 
    53
    54   Q.   Now, that having been said, Anne Holmes -----
    55
    56   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Are you moving from the generality to her
    57        particular situation?  Let me complete my note then, and we
    58        will have a break.
    59
    60                         (Short adjournment)

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