Day 124 - 10 May 95 - Page 29
1 A. And I do not necessarily see in that that your
2 conclusion that he was bribing or attempting to bribe
3 Nixon. It is pretty common to support candidates of your
4 choice and the Company does not impose, when I say "the
5 Company", individuals in the Company in senior management,
6 do not try to impose their will on a judgment of officers
7 or other Company employees on who they should vote for and
8 who they should contribute, whose campaigns they should
9 contribute.
10
11 Q. If I can just move on? I will go back to something which
12 came up before which is the subminimum wage. Do you
13 remember you asked me to say what it was? Maybe this will
14 jog your memory. Do you remember that in 1972, in fact, on
15 May 11th, 1972, the US House of Representatives passed a
16 piece of legislation calling for a subminimum wage, that
17 is, "a youth differential", which would allow employees to
18 hire 16 and 17 year old workers as well as full-time
19 students at 80 per cent of the recently proposed minimum
20 wage. Does that ring a bell now?
21 A. I think I recall that, that Act.
22
23 Q. That Act was dubbed by the media as "the McDonald's Bill"
24 because McDonald's at the time was the largest employer of
25 that age group in the country, do you remember that?
26 A. Vaguely.
27
28 Q. Do you remember that McDonald's supported that legislation?
29 A. No. I do not know what our involvement was in that
30 legislation. That would not have been an area of
31 responsibility for me at that time.
32
33 Q. Do you remember that the -----
34 A. As I recall ---
35
36 Q. Sorry, yes. Please say.
37 A. -- as I recall, and again, you know, you could get
38 perhaps a little clarification on that from Mr. Stein, it
39 seems to me students could be employed at a wage that was
40 less than a minimum wage for a period of 30 days or 60
41 days, or hired for the minimum -- what it was, they were
42 hired for the minimum wage, and the differential between
43 what was passed and the minimum wage would be reimbursed to
44 the Company by the government. They had to submit an
45 application to the government and the employer would be
46 reimbursed. So, in other words ---
47
48 Q. So the government -----
49 A. -- so, in other words, the employee -- it was not that
50 the employee made less; it seems to me that the employer
51 was reimbursed for hiring students.
52
53 Q. So the government was, effectively, subsidising
54 McDonald's ---
55 A. For the employment of students.
56
57 Q. -- for the employment of students?
58 A. Yes. Now, that is my recollection and I could be all
59 wrong on that, but if you want a more definitive answer to
60 that ----
