Day 154 - 13 Jul 95 - Page 36
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- than older people. McDonald's are saying
3 because younger people find it fun; you are saying because
4 they have much less than choice than older people.
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6 MS. STEEL: Yes.
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8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I will have to look at all the evidence and
9 make up my own mind, if I think it is really relevant.
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11 MS. STEEL: I think part of the problem is the language that is
12 being used. It is being put from their point of view:
13 younger people are more attracted, rather than younger
14 people have less choice. So -----
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16 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is -----
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18 MS. STEEL: Or older people are less attracted.
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20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That does not surprise me, when you have a
21 McDonald's witness in the witness box.
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23 MS. STEEL: It is not surprising that I then try and pin him
24 down to the fact that older people are not interested in
25 applying.
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27 (To the witness) Do you know why it is that older people
28 are less attracted to the prospect of working at
29 McDonald's?
30 A. We do employ older people in restaurants. I think, you
31 know, part of the thing is that a lot of older people --
32 when McDonald's came to this country, there were not any
33 McDonald's in the country, so it never even crossed their
34 mind to work for McDonald's. They do not really know what
35 is involved. Our customer base of people who come into the
36 restaurants on a regular basis tends to be between sort of
37 15 to 35, so they are used to McDonald's, they know what to
38 expect. Therefore, that may be one reason why we get
39 people within that age group. That is not to say that we
40 have not got people of all ages working for the Company.
41
42 I will agree that the base tends to be younger, although
43 not necessarily under 18. We actually went through a stage
44 four or five years ago of actually trying to recruit people
45 over the age of 55.
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47 Q. Because they found it hard to find jobs elsewhere?
48 A. I do not believe that was the reason for the
49 recruitment campaign.
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51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: How do you think we are doing as to time
52 generally this afternoon, looking at the clock?
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54 MR. MORRIS: We want to be finished today. We said we would
55 finish today. We have not made any fuss about the fact
56 that we are not going to get the transcripts, which makes
57 our job ten times harder than yesterday because we are
58 conscious that our notes are totally inadequate for any
59 purpose, really. We have tried to avoid making that
60 complaint, but it is just very, very -----
