Day 138 - 20 Jun 95 - Page 23
1 around 1989/90 in Philadelphia, USA, in response to a
2 community campaign over wage rates at McDonald's, the First
3 Plaintiffs", that is the Corporation in this case,
4 "prepared an antiunion strategy in case employees began to
5 join." Do you remember, Mr. Stein, a community campaign
6 (as it is called) over wage rates at McDonald's in
7 Philadelphia in 1989/90?
8 A. Yes, I do.
9
10 Q. Tell us how that originated and who originated it?
11 A. There was a local grass roots organisation that was
12 also acting as a union. It called itself PUP, commonly,
13 P-U-P, Philadelphia Unemployment -- I forget what the other
14 "P".
15
16 Q. "Project"?
17 A. "Project", there you go. It was commonly known as
18 "PUP" -- that would be how I would refer to it -- and they
19 began a campaign within the Philadelphia area to attempt to
20 organise McDonald's restaurants.
21
22 Q. Did they make a comparison of McDonald's rates of pay in
23 different parts of the city?
24 A. What they did was, as part of their campaign, they
25 attempted to make wages a key issue, if you will, and they
26 began to publicise in the media a claim that we paid a
27 dollar more, that McDonald's paid a dollar more, in the
28 suburbs than it did to the city workers. That was their
29 claim.
30
31 Q. Was there any political implication in that claim or not,
32 suburbs versus inner city?
33 A. Yes, what they are trying to do is bring people in to
34 support them. They are trying to create racial indignation
35 because the suburbs in the Philadelphia area are
36 principally white and the city area is principally
37 minority, a principally black minority, if you will.
38
39 Q. If I have understood it correctly, the assertion was, in
40 effect, that McDonald's was exploiting black people in the
41 inner city?
42 A. That is the essence of their claims.
43
44 Q. Can you find -- I am afraid it is a new file, Mr. Stein --
45 number XIV?
46 A. Yes, I have it right here.
47
48 Q. Turn, please, to tab 81. This, as you can see, Mr. Stein,
49 is entitled: "Wage abuse in the fast-food industry". It
50 purports to have been issued by the Philadelphia
51 Unemployment Project. You see that in typescript at the
52 bottom of the page?
53 A. Yes, sir.
54
55 Q. There is an artistic box in the middle of the page: "Never
56 before have so many earned so little from so few." It says
57 that it is a study comparing conditions in suburban and
58 inner city fast-food restaurants in the Delaware Valley,
59 which is Philadelphia; is that right?
60 A. Yes, that is correct.
