Day 124 - 10 May 95 - Page 16
1
2 Q. Around the early mid 70s; would that be fair to say?
3 A. Rap sessions had been around, have been a part of
4 McDonald's for, oh, for a long time. I cannot say that
5 A.T. Kearney introduced the concept of rap sessions at
6 McDonald's; there were rap sessions, we had rap sessions
7 before A.T. Kearney. They were not called rap sessions.
8 They were called informal crew meetings, so maybe they
9 coined a term "Rap sessions", but the manner of
10 communication with employees on an informal basis has been
11 a part of McDonald's for as long as I can remember.
12
13 Q. Do you remember a report issued by headquarters in the
14 month of August 1973 about union influence, or potential
15 union influence on its staff?
16 A. No, I do not.
17
18 Q. Which area were you working in at the time, around about
19 that time -- 73/74?
20 A. 1973 I was regional Vice-president in Washington DC.
21
22 Q. Do you still have any links, your company, with Kearney's
23 the consultancy firm?
24 A. Not to my knowledge. Not to my knowledge. I do not
25 think we had, I do not recall the last time that we
26 actually worked with them.
27
28 Q. The confidential report on union activities and union
29 sympathies issued in August 1977 which you do not remember,
30 would it jog your memory if I said did it cite trouble in a
31 number of towns in different parts of America, including
32 Potsdam, New York and Phoenix, Arizona? It was a report
33 that had specific situations looked into and analysed,
34 specific local McDonald's branches where there had been
35 dissent?
36 A. I do not recall.
37
38 Q. And you do not remember?
39 A. I do not recall.
40
41 Q. Do you remember that there was controversy, if you like, or
42 problems for McDonald's, in establishing branches in San
43 Francisco because of refusal by the Board of Permit Appeals
44 to grant licences; do you remember that? About in the
45 spring of 1972? I think we have had an admission, or
46 something like that.
47 A. I do not have any substantive recall of that. Again
48 I was in Washington DC at the time. My responsibility was
49 really for a four-state area, including Washington. That
50 was across the country and anything that I might recall
51 would have been second or third-hand information from
52 fellow regional managers. So I could not really give you
53 anything that I can recall about that, other than the fact
54 that there might have been, you know, what you have stated.
55
56 Q. Do you remember that McDonald's put ads in San Francisco's
57 two daily papers around this time, in defence of their
58 right to open without unions representing their workers,
59 signed by Ray Kroc?
60 A. I have no knowledge of that. I do not recall that.
