Day 310 - 04 Dec 96 - Page 11
1 reasons why people leave all the time for the high
2 turnover; the place is, therefore, not somewhere where
3 anybody would want to work and as soon as they discover
4 what it is like they go. That is the first point. The
5 second point is the cross-heading "Trained to Sweat" .
6 Everybody knows what a sweat shop is. It is where there is
7 that very combination of bad pay, poor conditions of which
8 any right thinking person would disapprove.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: At the moment, I do not have any real
11 reservation that the overall and principal sting is that
12 the First and Second Plaintiffs pay bad wages for bad
13 working conditions. It is just whether that is covered by
14 your pleading. At the moment it seems to me it is, by the
15 first line of N.
16
17 MR. RAMPTON: Yes. In effect it is saying, if one uses two
18 words rather than a lot of words, McDonald's are bad
19 employers, which is defamatory of the Company.
20
21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The answer to the headline is "awful", is it
22 not?
23
24 MR. RAMPTON: Sorry?
25
26 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The answer to the headline is "awful".
27
28 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, exactly. "Awful".
29
30 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Or pretty bad.
31
32 MR. RAMPTON: Yes. So bad that nobody would go and work there
33 unless they had no other choice, perhaps because they were
34 members of a disadvantaged group of society.
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I see that as the fundamental basis of the
37 Defendants' case, which I have to ask myself whether it is
38 justified or not.
39
40 Now, I want to make sure I understand what you are saying
41 about comment here.
42
43 MR. RAMPTON: Yes.
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Because, apart from something I want to come
46 back to in relation to the rainforest, which you might
47 prompt me to do if I forget as to whether there is any
48 comment on the rainforest part -- that is, the ecological
49 catastrophe and wrecking the planet, I would like your
50 assistance on. 'Bad' would very often, if not normally, be
51 seen as an expression of opinion?
52
53 MR. RAMPTON: It depends on the context.
54
55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But it depends on the context.
56
57 MR. RAMPTON: Or could; so would 'low'.
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I see what -- yes. If they are statements
60 of fact, if "bad conditions" is a statement of fact, then
