Day 154 - 13 Jul 95 - Page 36


     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  -- than older people.  McDonald's are saying
     3        because younger people find it fun; you are saying because
     4        they have much less than choice than older people.
     5
     6   MS. STEEL:  Yes.
     7
     8   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I will have to look at all the evidence and
     9        make up my own mind, if I think it is really relevant.
    10
    11   MS. STEEL:  I think part of the problem is the language that is
    12        being used.  It is being put from their point of view:
    13        younger people are more attracted, rather than younger
    14        people have less choice.  So -----
    15
    16   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  That is -----
    17
    18   MS. STEEL:  Or older people are less attracted.
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  That does not surprise me, when you have a
    21        McDonald's witness in the witness box.
    22
    23   MS. STEEL:  It is not surprising that I then try and pin him
    24        down to the fact that older people are not interested in
    25        applying.
    26
    27        (To the witness)  Do you know why it is that older people
    28        are less attracted to the prospect of working at
    29        McDonald's?
    30        A.  We do employ older people in restaurants.  I think, you
    31        know, part of the thing is that a lot of older people --
    32        when McDonald's came to this country, there were not any
    33        McDonald's in the country, so it never even crossed their
    34        mind to work for McDonald's.  They do not really know what
    35        is involved.  Our customer base of people who come into the
    36        restaurants on a regular basis tends to be between sort of
    37        15 to 35, so they are used to McDonald's, they know what to
    38        expect.  Therefore, that may be one reason why we get
    39        people within that age group.  That is not to say that we
    40        have not got people of all ages working for the Company.
    41
    42        I will agree that the base tends to be younger, although
    43        not necessarily under 18.  We actually went through a stage
    44        four or five years ago of actually trying to recruit people
    45        over the age of 55.
    46
    47   Q.   Because they found it hard to find jobs elsewhere?
    48        A.  I do not believe that was the reason for the
    49        recruitment campaign.
    50 
    51   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  How do you think we are doing as to time 
    52        generally this afternoon, looking at the clock? 
    53
    54   MR. MORRIS:  We want to be finished today.  We said we would
    55        finish today.  We have not made any fuss about the fact
    56        that we are not going to get the transcripts, which makes
    57        our job ten times harder than yesterday because we are
    58        conscious that our notes are totally inadequate for any
    59        purpose, really.  We have tried to avoid making that
    60        complaint, but it is just very, very -----

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