Day 190 - 23 Nov 95 - Page 31
1 than as an employee -----
2
3 MR. RAMPTON: Absolutely. I am not suggesting it was a fraud.
4 But if a journalist went in under cover, as it were,
5 pretending to be an employee and not letting on that she is
6 a journalist, and asked questions which the Manager does
7 have authority to answer to an employee, but without ever
8 revealing that she means to get the information for
9 publication, then it is doubtful, we would submit, whether
10 the answers given could be used for the reason that the
11 authority to give those answers has been invalidated by the
12 true purpose for which they were sought.
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I would have to look at the substance, would
15 I not? One can forget any element of deception. If it
16 were, for instance, that even an Assistant Manager is
17 authorised to make responses to an employee asking about
18 their conditions at work, but not to make responses to a
19 researcher or journalist inquiring into McDonald's
20 practices, then even if the researcher is an employee,
21 I have to decide whether the questions were asked not with
22 a view to reassuring herself about the terms of her
23 employment, but rather to further her research -- do I not?
24
25 MR. RAMPTON: Well, my Lord, given what Ms. Lamb says in her
26 statement about conducting these interviews in the course
27 of researching into working practices at McDonald's, and
28 given the actual substance -- I have not looked at Lynval's
29 statement for this purpose; my copy is virtually
30 unreadable, anyway -- but one only has to look at Mark Ryan
31 to realise that it is obvious that Ms. Lamb was probably
32 perfectly open and said: "Look, I am a journalist. I would
33 like to know a bit about how the store operates, how the
34 business operates." Whether she did or not, these are
35 answers to questions which have very little to do with the
36 actual or prospective employment conditions of an
37 individual employee.
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I thought there were just two in the
40 interview of Mark Ryan, the first being the last sentence
41 at the end of the third paragraph, about the basis of
42 scheduling ---
43
44 MR. RAMPTON: Interestingly -----
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- and the second one being in the large
47 middle paragraph on the second page, about "at McDonald's
48 everything is tight", and then down to "one packet of
49 mixture". All the other matters -----
50
51 MR. RAMPTON: This is under the heading "Managers". She went in
52 as a crew member. It is inconceivable that -----
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: This is quite regardless of any point you
55 have about her being a journalist, or anything else.
56
57 MR. RAMPTON: No, no, I quite agree. I have taken that point.
58 This is about managers. It is inconceivable that an
59 Assistant Manager would be authorised to say these things
60 to a crew member. The same applies to the earlier sentence
