Day 303 - 19 Nov 96 - Page 44
1 he had spoken to the Financial Times. It was quoted in
2 September 1987 that "unions were just not necessary at
3 McDonald's" and he stated that "unions have a different way
4 of thinking, and if that started to spread within
5 McDonald's it would be seen in McDonald's results and
6 sales". I cannot remember whether we put that to
7 Mr. Preston, what he said about it, but I just thought I
8 would bring it up anyway.
9
10 Of course, the letter was printed in the Gravesend
11 newspaper. It was in the North Kent Times, whatever, from
12 McDonald's admitting that an employee, Richard Aitken, had
13 worked for more than seven hours without any sort of break
14 on at least two occasions -- they had said on two occasions
15 -- and had also worked on eight occasions over 39 hours
16 per week. He had alleged the previous week it was much
17 more than that, but that is an admission anyway.
18
19 There is something else I wanted to mention which was,
20 I cannot remember the name of it now -- the chap that died
21 in America after working all night, falling asleep at the
22 wheel of the car, and McDonald's was ordered to pay
23 $400,000 compensation to the injured passenger. I think
24 Mr. Stein was questioned about that.
25
26 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Let us just take stock. If you just carried
27 on through the remainder of your notes that you were
28 expecting to tell me about today, how long would you take?
29
30 MR. MORRIS: We are rushing through it, and maybe it was not the
31 best way of doing this; maybe we might have 20 minutes,
32 half an hour, if we did it as we would want to.
33
34 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What are your plans after that?
35
36 MS. STEEL: We were going to ask if we could have the rest of
37 the week to prepare properly for publication and
38 counterclaim because, obviously, they are very important
39 parts of the case and the legal submissions. I do not
40 know. Obviously, the more time we have the better. We
41 would certainly not be ready to start on publication
42 tomorrow. That is for sure. So even if we cannot have,
43 you know, the rest of the week to prepare, then we would at
44 least like tomorrow and Thursday, but I do not know. We
45 realise that everybody really wants to get this over and
46 done with by Christmas, so we are in your hands.
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think everyone does. It is not just me who
49 does. I think everyone does. There is strictly no magic
50 about that, but obviously everyone does and I think we can
51 do. What is the situation so far as any legal submissions
52 which you want to make is concerned?
53
54 MR. MORRIS: Legal submissions - do you mean apart from the
55 publication and -----
56
57 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Anything you may want to say about the law.
58
59 MR. MORRIS: We are trying to get legal submissions which we
60 have had help on into writing and what at the moment -----
