Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 09
1 they like, helping thereby to depress wages in the catering
2 trade, just a couple of thoughts on that. Obviously, we
3 have heard how McDonald's wage increases while there was a
4 minimum wage had to go up because the minimum wage went
5 up. Sorry, their starting rate had to go up. And then it
6 seems to have got frozen, or virtually frozen, to minute
7 increases of, you know, five pence or whatever, since the
8 wage councils were abolished, which is exactly the point
9 being made in the fact sheet.
10
11 And where it says 'helping thereby to depress wages in the
12 catering trade', we have heard how the catering trade
13 confidentially share wage information and, for example, we
14 have heard from Phil Pearson, and I will come to that, his
15 evidence, about how, for example, I think it was Pizza Hut
16 actually deliberately positioned themselves in the -- I
17 think it was -- top quintile, because the companies set
18 themselves a kind of level compared to the others in the
19 trade where they are going to pitch their wage levels, and,
20 as we know, McDonald's wage levels are at the bottom of
21 that low paid industry.
22
23 Therefore, what one company does, although it is obviously
24 common sense anyway, what one company does it will affect
25 how the others set their own wage levels. Obviously a
26 company as huge and important as McDonald's there will be,
27 you know, a note taken about what they are doing, whatever
28 it is, in particular.
29
30 As regards meaning 'P', 'they are only interested in
31 recruiting cheap labour and to this end disadvantaged
32 groups, women and black people especially'. That, of
33 course, was not the Plaintiffs' case when it was put at the
34 beginning of the trial about implying that we are saying
35 that McDonald's discriminate against disadvantaged groups,
36 in fact, but if you look at the meaning 'P', they are
37 recognising our position, which is that the leaflet says
38 that in order to get cheap labour they exploit, i.e., hire,
39 disadvantaged groups, which would include young people,
40 clearly, from the leaflet, young people, women and black
41 people. Because obviously they are the people that are
42 available on the market for the low wage jobs.
43
44 So that is what the leaflet says, that they are
45 discriminating in society, because, you know, they do not
46 have as much power and say as other groups in society and
47 at the same time they are discriminating in industry
48 because they get the low paid jobs. Not because we are
49 saying that McDonald's somehow treat them worse than they
50 treat their other workers; just they form, you know, a
51 substantial percentage of McDonald's workers. If you
52 include young people, obviously we are talking about
53 two-thirds or so of their workforce, which is an absolute
54 staggering proportion considering the proportion of young
55 people in the workforce as a whole.
56
57 So that is some thoughts on the meanings.
58
59 The point in the last paragraph about 'the truth is
60 McDonald's are only interested in recruiting cheap labour',
