Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 33


     
     1        what he has been told is true.  That is a different point
     2        entirely.
     3
     4   MR. MORRIS:   He is entitled to form an opinion based on it.
     5        Being an expert of course he can evaluate things that he
     6        hears and judge it against his own knowledge and
     7        experience.
     8
     9        Anyway, trying to get through this, he talks on page 5
    10        about staff expressing fear of joining a trade union at
    11        McDonald's, and that links him to, I think, Mr. Turnbull's
    12        evidence, as well, about how they had been contacted by
    13        various McDonald's employees, but there was some fear about
    14        being able to be open about the interest in unions.
    15
    16        He said on page 6, at the top -- this is Mr. Pearson --
    17        "The main concentrations of low paid workers are in the
    18        service industries, shops, hotel and catering
    19        distribution."  And in the middle of the page, he said:
    20        "The law does not permit anyone with less than two years'
    21        continuous service to claim for unfair dismissal unless it
    22        is for racial or sexual discrimination and, in theory, for
    23        trade union discrimination", although later he explains how
    24        effectively it is very difficult to prove that.  And
    25        because of the turnover at McDonald's, we would say that
    26        virtually all the staff -- because that is for full time
    27        workers, need two years continuous service, and part time
    28        workers need five years continuous service, so most of
    29        McDonald's workers fall outside of legal protection, or
    30        effective legal protection, in that regard.
    31
    32        Then on page 7, the Councils.  He says that low pay
    33        persists in catering.  The Council's Euro definition of low
    34        pay is the decency threshold set at less than 68 percent of
    35        earnings in any affiliated country, which he calculated in
    36        1992 to be £207 a week.  Now, that is presuming -- I think,
    37        he goes on to it later, I will come to it -- a certain
    38        guaranteed minimum number of hours, which of course
    39        McDonald's does not guarantee, and in any case their pay is
    40        so well below that as to be well below any reasonable
    41        definition of low pay.
    42
    43   MR. JUSTICE BELL:    Can you remind me, if you can remember, was
    44        that figure gross or what you take home?
    45
    46   MR. MORRIS:   I am going to come to that.  There was a
    47        discussion about that, and we will come to that.  I am sort
    48        of doing is chronologically, because that is the only way
    49        I can reasonably do it.
    50
    51   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    52
    53   MR. MORRIS:   So I had the impression it was gross, before
    54        deductions.  Then he says on that page, the next paragraph,
    55        line 16, "But average earnings for all workers covered by
    56        wage councils, including those in fast food, were £174 a
    57        week".  So even the lowest paid workers who are attempted
    58        to be protected by wage councils' provisions, for a start,
    59        they are well below the decency threshold, which is the
    60        minimum for a decent wage.  Secondly, not only is the

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