Day 184 - 06 Nov 95 - Page 49
1 Q. The rumours that Cam Ballantyne could close the store if a
2 union got established or whatever, sought to get
3 established, did those rumours make people a little bit
4 nervous about losing their jobs, something like that?
5 A. I do not -- I do not know. I never talked to them
6 about that. I just -- I asked them, you know, I told them
7 that we were starting a petition and these were the reasons
8 why, and I said: "It is up to you if you would like to
9 sign the petition or not", and then all the people who
10 signed the petition, we went round and asked them if they
11 wanted to write a letter.
12
13 Q. These letters that went -- we can look through them; they
14 are in front of you -- it is your understanding they were
15 all written completely independently by individuals
16 concerned, yes?
17 A. Yes.
18
19 Q. On standard forms?
20 A. No.
21
22 Q. So it is a complete coincidence that most of the forms were
23 identical then, is it?
24 A. Well, what I did is I prepared a John Doe letter, and
25 all I did, all I said is that they had to put it in this
26 format with, you know, attention to whoever -- sorry, that
27 they had to put the date, the file number, their address
28 and then they just put their names and they state that one
29 sentence, and then the rest was all their input, and then
30 the end had to be signed with the contact person, or
31 what-not, but it was just a blank piece of paper. I had
32 nothing written on that piece of paper other than this
33 format, and I said, like -- if you wanted me to write it
34 out for you, but just because I am not sure if I am
35 explaining myself clear enough.
36
37 Q. Your John Doe letter that you wrote, is it John Doe?
38 A. Yes, John Doe, John Doe.
39
40 Q. Can you just tell us what your John Doe letter actually
41 said?
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Look at page 690.
44
45 MR. MORRIS: 690 or 1690?
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: 1690, yes.
48
49 THE WITNESS: That is not mine.
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Sorry?
52 A. 1690?
53
54 Q. 1690, yes.
55 A. That is not my letter.
56
57 Q. No, I appreciate that but when you say a John Doe letter,
58 do you mean you did something, name, address, phone number?
59 A. All I did was I said -- I put on my piece of paper,
60 "write name, address, phone number, date" and I did not
