Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 41
1 20 - as a motivation for getting involved with the union.
2 And the other thing, of course, is that no employer with
3 any intelligence, and I think McDonald's has a certain
4 amount of that, would actually say, we are going to sack
5 you for your trade union activity as we are entitled to do,
6 of course, because you are infringing the Crew Handbook, or
7 whatever, because they would know that that is something
8 that can go to an industrial tribunal in certain
9 circumstances.
10
11 So the difficulty, as Mr. Pearson explained, is that people
12 may be being discriminated against, dismissed, or
13 disciplined in some way, shape or form because of trade
14 union type activity or even specific trade union activity
15 at McDonald's and nobody would know, except for the
16 individual concerned, because the employers are not going
17 to say that. Like the way, for example, they attempted
18 to -- well, no, okay. Whatever. As we have heard from
19 Mr. Magee, a number of people were interested in joining
20 the union at that branch, but it was not allowed to
21 develop.
22
23 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I am suffering a degree of torment.
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think we should try and do something. It
26 is not so much that the noise irritates me, but if I have
27 diagnosed the noise correctly, it means that it is on
28 battery rather than charge, and it may be running down.
29
30 MR. RAMPTON: It may be a loose connection.
31
32 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You have pressed it in at the back?
33
34 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, I have tried all of that.
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you manage without it?
37
38 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, I can.
39
40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. Okay, a number of people were
41 interested in joining this ----
42
43 MR. MORRIS: Yes, we heard that from Mr. Magee's
44 Civil Evidence Act statement, in any case. So Mr. Pearson
45 was only backing up what we have already heard from
46 Mr. Magee, as well, as far as his impression was.
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
49
50 MR. MORRIS: On page 23, moving on to the turnover figures
51 which were in the document - I am trying to find the name
52 of the actual document - employment flows in the catering
53 hospitality industry, I think it was - at the bottom of
54 page 23 he said it is produced by the research body for the
55 hotel and catering industry and therefore it was very
56 authoritative. And I think it was funded by the employment
57 department, so it could be seen to be pretty much reliable
58 information.
59
60 I have not got the document in front of me, but he said
