Day 283 - 21 Oct 96 - Page 30
1 in workplaces.
2
3 As far as their attitude to trade unions is concerned,
4 effectively trade unions are banned at McDonald's through
5 their own crew handbook, as Mr. Nicholson accepted, and
6 anybody attempting to unionise will inevitably be
7 disciplined and dismissed because it is just not allowed in
8 the rules.
9
10 And again, they know their turnover is high, they know that
11 overtime was not paid when it should have been, and they
12 know from their own documents that not only do they pay low
13 wages but that they are in the lowest quintile. I the 1987
14 survey, I think it was, of their own competitors, the
15 lowest of the low. I am not talking about little corner
16 cafes and things. We are talking about major catering
17 companies. They are in the lowest wage bracket, what they
18 would call competitive wages. A completely meaningless
19 word, if ever there was one.
20
21 So all this is all within their own knowledge and it was
22 within their own knowledge before they brought this case
23 and before the trial actually started and therefore they
24 cannot justify the allegation that we were lying about
25 employment conditions or that we were motivated by malice.
26 In fact, we brought defence witnesses - I cannot remember
27 exactly how many - I think we actually physically called 20
28 ex-workers, and a number of others from abroad gave written
29 evidence, some of them managers, most of them ordinary
30 workers, and their evidence, we would say, had the ring of
31 truth. And we called an expert, Phillip Pearson, who was a
32 former member of the wage council, who backed up what we
33 were saying.
34
35 So that is the run-through of the issues on that subject.
36
37 What positive evidence did McDonald's bring to back up
38 their allegation made in hundreds of thousands of leaflets
39 and press releases that we were distributing lies. We
40 would say not one single piece of evidence was brought on
41 that, except maybe with one proviso.
42
43 One of their infiltrators, paid agents, Alan Clare, made
44 some kind of vague allegation, not that he could remember
45 of course because he was relying on his notes, that some
46 people in the London Greenpeace may have said or said that
47 they were pleased not to have to stand up for their
48 allegations because the BBC had called off a debate with
49 McDonald's or something. The point being Alan Clare,
50 unbeknown to him, there was another infiltrator at the same
51 meeting, who of course did not notice this absolutely
52 fundamental piece of evidence.
53
54 We say he made it up. We say for a number of other reasons
55 that he was completely discredited as a witness. He made
56 up some other what you might call confessions as well,
57 which of course he was paid to do. But I was not at that
58 meeting and, in any case, it did not apply to Helen Steel
59 either. He did not identify her as having said that.
60
