Day 143 - 27 Jun 95 - Page 51
1 understood thing, that that is what the union's
2 requirements would be. In fact, I am positive that Mike
3 Thorell told that to the union. Let me put it this way.
4 He told me he told the union that that would be the sum and
5 substance of agreeing to the Orange Book and that he was
6 not going to do that.
7
8 Q. Are you aware there may have been -- well, do you know if
9 part of the agreement between unions and employers in the
10 industry that McDonald's did not want to adhere to is that
11 overtime should be paid?
12 A. Sir, the so-called Orange Book was in Dutch. I never
13 saw a translation of it -- I am sorry, in Danish. I cannot
14 even tell the difference, I am sorry. I guess it is in
15 Danish and I never saw a translation. Frankly I would have
16 tried to read it probably if I could have, but it was in
17 Danish and it was very thick.
18
19 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Hold on, we are in the Netherlands at the
20 moment. If it is an orange book I would have thought we
21 probably would be. It is their national colour.
22
23 MR. MORRIS: No, I believe we are in Denmark.
24 A. That would be Denmark, my Lord.
25
26 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It just shows how confused I am getting. The
27 difficulty with this line of enquiry is this. You have the
28 witness, Mr. Morris, Mr. Stein saying he does not accept
29 what you are putting. He then tells me what someone has
30 told him so, subject to any argument, I cannot rely on that
31 against you because that is hearsay. You are getting
32 nowhere. I am getting lots of things said which might be
33 favourable to McDonald's but which I am going to have to
34 discard at the end of the day because they fall foul of the
35 hearsay rule, and there is no exception to the hearsay rule
36 which protects them. We have had quite a lot of court time
37 and I look at what I have collected for the day and it is
38 not very much.
39
40 MR. MORRIS: Well, what I am saying here ----
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am encouraging you to take it shortly, find
43 out whether or not Mr. Stein can confirm what you want. Do
44 not pick up what he says someone told him because I cannot
45 treat that as evidence of the truth of what he was told in
46 any event.
47
48 MR. MORRIS: Mr. Stein, you visited Denmark in the 80s, yes?
49 A. Yes, I did.
50
51 Q. And you obviously enquired ----
52
53 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I want to say something, if I may.
54 I know it is annoying for everybody but I have just been
55 looking at yesterday's transcript. We had seven pages on
56 Denmark yesterday.
57
58 MR. MORRIS: I did not refer to this document. The point is,
59 you went to Denmark around the time that there had been
60 negotiations with unions on the matter of a collective
