Day 247 - 10 May 96 - Page 46
1
2 Q. The reason you have not put forward any such motion or
3 suggestion is because it would mean you would no longer be
4 reaping the rewards of other people's hard work, getting
5 your profits from the shares that you hold?
6 A. Ms. Steel, I work as hard as anybody in McDonald's.
7
8 Q. But?
9 A. I have for 30 years.
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Leave it there, because at the moment this
12 does not seem -- on such knowledge as I have of the way the
13 companies limited by shares operate, I just do not think
14 this is realistic. But there you are, you address me on it
15 at the end.
16
17 MS. STEEL: I think the whole thing can be solved quite simply,
18 which is that McDonald's could recognise that other people
19 are entitled to hold a point of view that they pay low
20 wages, and then we could all go home and forget about this.
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You still have not told me who you mean by
23 McDonald's.
24
25 MS. STEEL: The Corporation of which Mr. Preston is a ----
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You must tell me who you mean there so I can
28 understand. Do you mean the chief executive tomorrow could
29 do this, or do you mean that a meeting of shareholders,
30 including for all I know about a million small shareholders
31 in North America, or what?
32
33 MS. STEEL: If they wanted to, McDonald's could recognise we
34 have a right to criticise them for paying low wages and
35 then we could forgot about all talking about this and go
36 home tomorrow.
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is a different point, and I want you to
39 leave it there, but what I want you to do at the end of the
40 day is explain to me how it can be done -- you may have an
41 explanation how it can be done -- so that the Company still
42 survives and still employs anyone at all.
43
44 MS. STEEL: But that is not a relevant question. The relevant
45 question is, are other people entitled to have different
46 political beliefs from believing in a capitalist society
47 and will they have the right to express those beliefs,
48 which McDonald's do not seem to think we should.
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I will say it once more. You can ignore it
51 if you want, but at the end of the day I would like your
52 assistance on how it can be done. Quite apart from any
53 entitlement to criticise, how it can be done. I would like
54 you to make a note of it, and I would like you to come back
55 to it at some stage during your submissions, because when
56 we come to argue about low I would like you to tell me if
57 this is low, and you may succeed in persuading me that
58 their pay is low, what level of pay would not be low, and
59 then whether how, you say, the level of pay which is not
60 low could be achieved. You may well explain it to me.
