Day 283 - 21 Oct 96 - Page 16


     
     1        after only a few weeks.
     2
     3        Further, staff often have to work in the evening and at
     4        weekends, which can involve long hours inevitably spent in
     5        a hot, smelly and noisy environment.
     6
     7        Further, it is extremely difficult to improve the terms and
     8        conditions of work at the restaurants of the first and/or
     9        second plaintiff by trade union negotiations since there is
    10        no specific trade union for staff.
    11
    12        Further, the first and second plaintiff discourage trade
    13        unions and this has on occasion led to the dismissal of
    14        pro-union workers.
    15
    16        Further, the young people who work in the restaurants
    17        contribute towards the huge profits made by McDonald's.
    18        Without these workers such profits would not be made and
    19        McDonald's are to that extent dependent upon them.
    20
    21        Further, the absence of a national minimum wage means that
    22        McDonald's can pay their workers what they like.  Generally
    23        speaking, McDonald's are interested in recruiting labour at
    24        the cheapest rate possible.  This is exploitative,
    25        particularly in respect of members of certain groups such
    26        as women and black people who are generally disadvantaged
    27        in industry.
    28
    29        Now, those, what we might call base pleadings, in terms of
    30        meanings, were developed in the pleadings as we have
    31        progressed up to trial and during the trial.  Partly
    32        because of our inexperience we often could not distinguish
    33        between meanings and strict justification pleadings.  So
    34        there was meanings included.
    35
    36        But as has been agreed in the case, the pleadings in any
    37        way do not nail down all the issues accurately or
    38        comprehensively.  To some extent we all know what the
    39        issues have become as the trial has gone on.  I believe
    40        some amendments have been made which we have not managed to
    41        keep accurate records of in any case, but that is maybe
    42        academic now.
    43
    44        Can I just say one thing before I go on to showing how
    45        those beliefs, put down in meanings, have been fully
    46        justified by the evidence in the case, i.e., that these are
    47        reasonable beliefs without going fully into the facts that
    48        have been proved in the case.
    49
    50        Can I just say on that, in our original pleadings, I don't 
    51        know -- no, sorry, not our pleadings, McDonald's original 
    52        pleadings, as we have heard in this case there has from 
    53        time to time cropped up a confusion about what is meant by
    54        McDonald's and the first and second plaintiffs.  McDonald's
    55        use the word McDonald's to mean all their stores worldwide
    56        and everything that they do, unless they do something which
    57        is embarrassing, when it suddenly becomes, "well, that is
    58        the responsibility of the owner".  But I think that the
    59        evidence has shown, especially some of the early evidence
    60        before McDonald's began to adopt that kind of secondary

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