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 -----

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