Day 193 - 28 Nov 95 - Page 22
1 to make people feel that everything is happy at work. You
2 know, this occurred several times, whether it be field
3 consultants coming down, and everything would be OK for two
4 weeks and then it would drop off -- whether it be a video,
5 whether they hand you a free Big Mac and say, "Have a good
6 day."
7
8 Q. Are you really suggesting that a 17-year-old of average
9 intelligence would be brainwashed by seeing a video of
10 people having fun at a Christmas party?
11 A. You do not seem to understand how McDonald's tries to
12 make their employees feel through these tactics. They try
13 to make them feel that everything is OK, that you should
14 not have a problem, that McDonald's is big, happy family --
15 which they are not.
16
17 Q. But, I am sorry, I am not following you. If the place was
18 as miserable -- I use your word, miserable -- as you have
19 tried to make out, a jolly video of some young people
20 "goofing off" is not going to make the miserable young
21 people change their minds about their workplace, now, is
22 it?
23 A. For a short time I think it will, because I believe
24 people think that, after they see these types of videos, or
25 whether field consultants come down, they think: "Maybe it
26 is getting better this time", you know, "Maybe I can just
27 hold in."
28
29 Even the night before the vote, when Rob and Cam were
30 promising that things would not go back to the way it used
31 to be, people believed them; and then, a few months after,
32 it slipped again, and anti-union people came to me and
33 asked me to organise it again. They came to the committee
34 and asked them to organise it again.
35
36 Q. When was that?
37 A. When was which, when people came back to me?
38
39 Q. Yes.
40 A. To the committee?
41
42 Q. Yes.
43 A. Probably some time in April, I would imagine.
44
45 Q. I see. And nothing happened?
46 A. No. There is a law in Ontario that you have to wait a
47 certain amount of time before you can organise a place
48 again.
49
50 Q. So far as you know, nothing has happened since? We are now
51 in November, nearly December 1995.
52 A. Not at that particular workplace.
53
54 Q. You have tried quite hard, have you not, in the public
55 arena, to make sure that something did happen -- you,
56 personally; you have been in newspapers, you have been on
57 television, you have been on local radio, quite
58 consistently, have you not?
59 A. To make sure what happened? No, I do not understand.
60
