Day 174 - 17 Oct 95 - Page 25


     
     1
     2   MS. STEEL:   Why is it that you have not kept a copy of that
     3        letter?
     4        A.  Sorry, of which letter?
     5
     6   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, do not bother to answer that.
     7
     8   MS. STEEL:  It is not particularly this letter, in particular,
     9        but there seems to be a whole stream of letters that
    10        are -----
    11
    12   MR. JUSTICE BELL: I know, but it is all so long ago.  What I am
    13        really interested in is what, if any, part the union
    14        played.  Here we have got the first phase in the autumn or
    15        summer of 1979; we have got the second phase in the spring
    16        of 1980.  What I want to know is what interest, if at all,
    17        the union showed on a continuing basis.  I partly ask that,
    18        bearing in mind the statements of more than of your own
    19        witnesses about how difficult it is to mobilise (if that is
    20        the right word) people working in the catering industry.
    21        I have to, at the end of the day, get my mind round, if
    22        McDonald's are anti-union, whether it actually makes any
    23        difference to the conditions of the workers or not.
    24        I cannot run away from that.
    25
    26   MS. STEEL:   (To the witness)  Can I just perhaps make the point
    27        which I am trying to make, which is that, basically, the
    28        reason that there are lots of documents missing from these
    29        files is because you have got something to hide in your
    30        dealings with the unions; you were trying to avoid meeting
    31        with them, discussing things with them, allowing them to
    32        represent the workers who were members of their union; and
    33        you are trying to hide those matters from this court now,
    34        or from anyone else this might have come in front of.  So
    35        you have disposed of all those things from your files, so
    36        that people could not see the whole story?
    37        A.  I would not agree with you, Ms. Steel.  If we were
    38        trying to hide things, we would have not produced the
    39        correspondence that we have had with the union and the
    40        letters.  So I would not agree with you on tht.
    41
    42   Q.   But you cannot explain why it is tht you have kept some and
    43        not others?
    44        A.  No.  It is a long time ago, and I cannot tell you why
    45        we have this and we have not got that.
    46
    47   MR. MORRIS:  Not one of the letters we have looked at from you
    48        offers to meet with the union, does it?
    49
    50   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, I am going to be accused of giving 
    51        evidence ----- 
    52 
    53   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You do not have to ask a question like that.
    54
    55   MR. MORRIS:  OK.  The only meetings you had with the union -----
    56
    57   MR. JUSTICE BELL: I can read the letters, and you can ask me
    58        (and Mr. Rampton can as well) to draw one conclusion or the
    59        other.
    60

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