Day 175 - 18 Oct 95 - Page 37


     
     1
     2        It was that time that a number of people started talking
     3        about the need to be unionised, and initially that was a
     4        small group and discussions spread amongst the staff, but
     5        people had to be careful because everyone was of the
     6        opinion that McDonald's was an anti-union Company, and the
     7        Managers had always said whenever there had been a
     8        discussion about unions:  "You will never get unions here
     9        because they will never have it".  So, people knew that
    10        that was not something you could discuss openly.
    11
    12        So, when it became quite clear that quite a lot of people
    13        felt there was a need to unionise, a number of us organised
    14        a meeting in a local pub, to discuss the issue out of the
    15         -- away from the ears of the Managers.
    16
    17   Q.   How many people went to that?
    18        A.  It was around 15 people that went to the pub; some of
    19        them were already on that shift, other people came back for
    20        the purposes of the discussion.  During the discussion it
    21        was agreed that about five of us would start co-ordinating,
    22        finding out what we should do and how to go about it.  But,
    23        obviously, these sort of discussions and things were picked
    24        up by the management on the work on the shop floor,
    25        whatever you want to call it.  People were aware of it
    26        being discussed.
    27
    28        It was not -- it was not discussed openly but it was
    29        obvious these discussions were taking place and a sort of
    30        paranoia developed amongst the Managers where they would
    31        not allow group discussions to take place on anything that
    32        was connected to the job or politics, and would break the
    33        discussions up and threaten to discipline people for not
    34        doing their work or for anything really.  They just got
    35        extremely paranoid and aggressive about it and, I suppose,
    36        frightened about the idea of people wanting to talk about
    37        unions.
    38
    39   Q.   Sorry, just a question I was going to ask you:  The core
    40        group of this, you said about five people or something,
    41        were these part-timers, full-timers?
    42        A.  Full-timers.  Maybe one of them was part-time but the
    43        rest were full-timers.
    44
    45   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I do not think you told me -- it may be in
    46        your statement and I just have not remembered -- just pause
    47        a moment -- what were you doing during the first two and a
    48        half years, or whatever it was, while you were part-time?
    49        A.  I was at college.
    50 
    51   Q.   Yes. 
    52 
    53   MR. MORRIS:  Regarding rap sessions, you have stated the general
    54        situation.  What was your personal involvement?  How many
    55        did you attend?
    56        A.  When I started working at the store I had been told a
    57        lot of things in my, sort of, induction before I started,
    58        and I naturally I asked the other staff about them.  One of
    59        the things I was interested in was this concept of rap
    60        sessions, where people can go along, air their grievances

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