Day 002 - 29 Jun 94 - Page 41
1 40-hour week, 35-hour week, like I had when I was employed
in the Post Office -- at least you knew what you were
2 going to get each week in a pay packet even if it was not
great -- but the amount of hours worked is in the hands of
3 management. Of course, you cannot get Social Security.
If they decide you only get 18 hours at McDonald's, you
4 only take home, whatever it is, £55.
5 So, really the whole area of employees' rights and
conditions -- the people that are most expert who deal
6 with that are the ex staff themselves. We will be calling
30 ex-staff.
7
As far as conditions, it is our case that although
8 McDonald's may or may not have policies or even documents
identifying exactly what the workers should do at any one
9 second, in terms of keeping, you know, the floors clean
and not slippery, the procedures to follow, not to get
10 accidents, but when it comes to raking in the money at the
important times of the day a lot of the procedures
11 automatically get thrown out of the window. That is a
time when a lot of the accidents, burns and slips, shocks
12 from equipment happen in their stores. Really, this is
the reality behind the image when people buy their
13 burgers; somebody is working their guts out in order to
increase the profits of the McDonald's Corporation.
14
If I can just say something that we feel is very
15 important. McDonald's have said that this is all lies of
course. They are under an obligation, in any event, we
16 believe (although we have failed up to now) to provide
accident statistics, accidents records, which will show if
17 they take accidents seriously and how many accidents
occur.
18
Mr. Rampton said: What does eight people prove, we have
19 eight witnesses who have had an accident? What he does
not say, of course, is that within five minutes people
20 could phone up Headquarters and ask for their statistics
and say: Well, in the interests of truth, we know now that
21 17,000 accidents were reported last year from McDonald's
workers or 1500, or whatever the figure is. We already
22 have documents from them which show they have statistics;
they have not released the statistics. So again, now
23 because of the counterclaim, they are under a burden of
proof and also to reveal, or release the statistics they
24 do have. It would be useful to get that done as soon as
possible so we will not have to recall witnesses to put it
25 to them when we have the information finally. Otherwise,
the trial will not be a fair trial, the truth will not be
26 established at the end, and it will not help anybody at
the end of the day if the truth is not genuinely
27 established.
28 So far as trade unions are concerned, again like all these
points, a policy -- it says: "McDonald's have a policy of
29 preventing unionisation by getting rid of pro-union
workers". A policy is not just directives or even written
30 statements, which we believe McDonald's are very careful
now what they put in writing, even in internal material.
