Day 138 - 20 Jun 95 - Page 67


     
     1   MR. RAMPTON:  A local union branch?
     2        A.  That is correct, yes, of the National Union.
     3
     4   Q.   These are the people that were running this dispute at
     5        Tysons, the local 425, are they?
     6        A.  I do not know if were running the dispute.  The
     7        international and the local union are the recognised
     8        collective bargaining agent.
     9
    10   Q.   Anyway this is what it says: "Local 425 believes every
    11        consumer is entitled to know about the sanitary conditions
    12        at the plant.  Those conditions affect the lives of Tysons'
    13        workers and the health of the consuming public"?
    14        A.  Yes.
    15
    16   Q.   Is that, or is it not, a fair representation, so far as you
    17        were concerned at the time, of the effect of the message
    18        about McNuggets that was being posted outside McDonald's
    19        stores and sent through the mail?
    20        A.  Yes.
    21
    22   Q.   What was the consequence of this secondary leaflet in
    23        campaign against the McNugget product?
    24        A.  I am not ----
    25
    26   Q.   What happened?
    27        A.  What happened?  We started to get these leaflets,
    28        obviously when they began to be handed out at our stores,
    29        we got some in the mail.  I think Mike Quinlan got some,
    30        I think even I got some, and obviously Chicken McNuggets
    31        was a relatively new product for us at that time.  It did
    32        represent potentially a significant part of our business,
    33        so I immediately became involved with this and I went to
    34        the Nashville Arkansas Plant myself to take a look at these
    35        claimed unsanitary conditions.
    36
    37   Q.   You are not an expert in food safety?
    38        A.  No, I am not.
    39
    40   Q.   Did you have any professional help for this inspection or
    41        not?
    42        A.  I had two of our purchasing people with me.  We went
    43        together and ----
    44
    45   Q.   What conclusion did you reach when you inspected the plant?
    46        A.  That the plant was a state of the art stainless steel.
    47        I would eat off the floor.
    48
    49   Q.   Were the stores involved in the actual direct picketing by
    50        the union, or were they Mac co-stores or were they licensed 
    51        stores? 
    52        A.  They would blend, it would be both. 
    53
    54   Q.   So what did you in the stores, and I collectively call them
    55        that, do about this?
    56        A.  Charges were filed with the National Labour Relations
    57        Board.
    58
    59   Q.   What would be nature of those?
    60        A.  Secondary boycott charges.

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