Day 184 - 06 Nov 95 - Page 51


     
     1        that, is what you said, you should put it down, yes?
     2        A.  No, I just said:  "If you feel you are misinformed,
     3        anything like that", there were green sheets up in the crew
     4        room which was the application form and they had, "if you
     5        feel" -- and it is was right in the green sheets, the union
     6        sheets, the reasons -- "if you feel any of these reasons
     7        apply to you, please write a letter to this address".  So
     8        what Chris Broom and Michelle and I did was just ask the
     9        people who signed the petition if they want to write a
    10        letter.
    11
    12   Q.   If we just look at that 1690 letter, the reason on this one
    13        given is in the middle sentence:  "I was misinformed about
    14        our benefits being taken away, for example, our half price
    15        food and paid breaks" which is identical to the one we
    16        looked at before said about half price food and paid breaks
    17        being taken away.  Does that help you to remember where
    18        that threat to take away half price food and paid breaks
    19        may have come from?
    20        A.  The only thing -- I do not know why, like, they all
    21        wrote the same thing, but it was, you know, we all, by the
    22        time we started writing the letters we knew everything had
    23        to be negotiated.  Now, they decided that they were only
    24        going to mention these benefits, or that these benefits
    25        were the most important to them, I am not sure, but I never
    26        wrote in my John Doe letter any of this, like, any of that,
    27        you know, our benefits being taken away, or anything like
    28        that.  I never put any of that in the letter.  I strictly
    29        referred to the green application sheets that were sent in
    30        to our store.
    31
    32   Q.   It did not mention half price food and paid breaks though,
    33        did it, in this green sheet?
    34        A.  No, but that is what I mean, that is what they felt.
    35        If -----
    36
    37   Q.   So the intervenors thought that benefits were going to be
    38        taken away, or there was a strong possibility that
    39        benefits, so-called benefits, were going to be taken away,
    40        as a result of the union getting established at the store?
    41        A.  Not that they were going to be taken away but that they
    42        would have to be negotiated.
    43
    44   Q.   They do not say anything about negotiated here?
    45        A.  But it is not my fault like, it is not my fault what
    46        they wrote down.  I cannot -----
    47
    48   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  We cannot -----
    49        A.  -- I cannot help it if they are going to write down
    50        "negotiate" or not.  I cannot tell them what to write 
    51        down.  This was all up to them.  If they are going to use 
    52        the word "taken away" instead of "negotiated", I cannot do 
    53        anything about it
    54
    55   MR. MORRIS:  You put in your statement:  "We could lose the
    56        benefits we have".
    57        A.  We could lose, which would mean negotiations, which
    58        would mean we could keep them or we could lose them.  There
    59        is a possibility.  I did not say it was a hundred per cent
    60        for sure that we would lose them.

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