Day 283 - 21 Oct 96 - Page 30


     
     1        in workplaces.
     2
     3        As far as their attitude to trade unions is concerned,
     4        effectively trade unions are banned at McDonald's through
     5        their own crew handbook, as Mr. Nicholson accepted, and
     6        anybody attempting to unionise will inevitably be
     7        disciplined and dismissed because it is just not allowed in
     8        the rules.
     9
    10        And again, they know their turnover is high, they know that
    11        overtime was not paid when it should have been, and they
    12        know from their own documents that not only do they pay low
    13        wages but that they are in the lowest quintile.  I the 1987
    14        survey, I think it was, of their own competitors, the
    15        lowest of the low.  I am not talking about little corner
    16        cafes and things.  We are talking about major catering
    17        companies.  They are in the lowest wage bracket, what they
    18        would call competitive wages.  A completely meaningless
    19        word, if ever there was one.
    20
    21        So all this is all within their own knowledge and it was
    22        within their own knowledge before they brought this case
    23        and before the trial actually started and therefore they
    24        cannot justify the allegation that we were lying about
    25        employment conditions or that we were motivated by malice.
    26        In fact, we brought defence witnesses - I cannot remember
    27        exactly how many - I think we actually physically called 20
    28        ex-workers, and a number of others from abroad gave written
    29        evidence, some of them managers, most of them ordinary
    30        workers, and their evidence, we would say, had the ring of
    31        truth.  And we called an expert, Phillip Pearson, who was a
    32        former member of the wage council, who backed up what we
    33        were saying.
    34
    35        So that is the run-through of the issues on that subject.
    36
    37        What positive evidence did McDonald's bring to back up
    38        their allegation made in hundreds of thousands of leaflets
    39        and press releases that we were distributing lies.  We
    40        would say not one single piece of evidence was brought on
    41        that, except maybe with one proviso.
    42
    43        One of their infiltrators, paid agents, Alan Clare, made
    44        some kind of vague allegation, not that he could remember
    45        of course because he was relying on his notes, that some
    46        people in the London Greenpeace may have said or said that
    47        they were pleased not to have to stand up for their
    48        allegations because the BBC had called off a debate with
    49        McDonald's or something.  The point being Alan Clare,
    50        unbeknown to him, there was another infiltrator at the same 
    51        meeting, who of course did not notice this absolutely 
    52        fundamental piece of evidence. 
    53
    54        We say he made it up.  We say for a number of other reasons
    55        that he was completely discredited as a witness.  He made
    56        up some other what you might call confessions as well,
    57        which of course he was paid to do.  But I was not at that
    58        meeting and, in any case, it did not apply to Helen Steel
    59        either.  He did not identify her as having said that.
    60

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