Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 08


     
     1        me about it.
     2
     3   MR. MORRIS:   Going back to McDonald's exploitation of their
     4        workers ----
     5
     6   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes, just let me catch up with my note.
     7        (Pause)  Yes.
     8
     9   MR. MORRIS:   I think I have finished Mr. Nicholson, and I have
    10        done the meaning, and that was where I was up to.  Just
    11        going back to meaning, the Plaintiffs have claimed that
    12        McDonald's have adopted a policy of preventing unionisation
    13        by getting rid of pro-union workers and preventing
    14        unionisation.  Obviously, the Crew Handbook policy of
    15        preventing any kind of collective activity or independent
    16        communication amongst workers is a policy of preventing
    17        unionisation, amongst other things.  So one could argue
    18        that the leaflet could have said 'prevented unionisation by
    19        banning any collective union type activity and by getting
    20        rid of pro-union workers', so that the leaflet could have
    21        been more defamatory.  But it only specifies one particular
    22        plank of their policy, which is the gross misconduct
    23        leading to summary sackable offence, which Mr. Nicholson
    24        defined talking to a union about conditions in the stores
    25        as being.
    26
    27        So, if you are going to prevent unionisation then you would
    28        do exactly what McDonald's has specified in their Crew
    29        Handbook.  I can't see any other method of preventing
    30        unionisation that would be more effective and more
    31        successful as telling every single worker that they cannot
    32        do anything which would even remotely resemble any kind of
    33        union activity, and you tell them that on the first day in
    34        their official handbook, just in case they get the
    35        slightest idea on the subject.  Of course, if people do
    36        carry out any of those things, they get disciplined and
    37        eventually sacked, or indeed got rid of by some other
    38        method, because their face does not fit.
    39
    40        It must take quite some courage to be a McDonald's worker
    41        and make any contacts with unions or do any kind of overt
    42        or even covert union related activity, and I think they all
    43        deserve a medal for even considering it, considering the
    44        environment at McDonald's workplaces.
    45
    46        Can I just say meaning 'N' says - this is McDonald's
    47        pleaded meaning - something about taking advantage of the
    48        existence of any specific union.  It does not say anything
    49        in the fact sheet about taking advantage of the lack of any
    50        specific union at all.  I think it is a small point, but it
    51        is one of those "let us extend this as far as we can" kind
    52        of points.
    53
    54        I am just having sort of mute thoughts on the meanings
    55        here.  Can I say, by the way, the 'taking advantage of' is
    56        an inferential meaning, if it is anything.  But that is in
    57        the meaning 'N'.
    58
    59        On meaning 'O', just a thought about this, taking advantage
    60        of the absence of a minimum wage in Britain to pay what

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