Day 303 - 19 Nov 96 - Page 22
1 something, we are talking about something like 85,000 staff
2 of which maybe 800 were ex crew. So that is 1 per cent.
3
4 Sorry, I got my 3 per cent and 1 and a half per cent
5 wrong. I must have calculated on the turnover. So
6 basically it comes down to only 1 per cent of crew would
7 have the possibility of being promoted to a salaried
8 position, which basically means that 99 per cent have
9 not got the possibility and therefore it is not a
10 realistic ----
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There is a question there, whether the real
13 point of these figures, whether or not they are strictly
14 accurate, whether the real point is that it demonstrates
15 how few people go to McDonald's as a career move, as it
16 were, rather than what the opportunities are if you do go
17 there wanting to stay. I see the word used in the leaflet.
18
19 MR. MORRIS: Yes.
20
21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you want to break off there now?
22
23 MR. MORRIS: Yes. We will be definitely be finished by four,
24 that is for certain, because that is all the preparation
25 I have managed to do. So everyone can relax anyway, so far
26 as that is concerned.
27
28 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, very well. Two o'clock.
29
30 (Luncheon Adjournment)
31
32 MR. MORRIS: Just a brief run through of some of the things that
33 on the testimony -- not testimony, but some of the things
34 that came up.
35
36 Mr. Stein had worked for McDonald's since 1974 and he
37 joined as a labour attorney and a substantial amount of the
38 disputes which we had heard about, which no doubt there are
39 more which we have not heard about, but anyway, he seemed
40 to have been involved in one way or another in most of
41 them. Mexico 1985, when McDonald's were clearly, under the
42 evidence, not wanting to negotiate with or have a deal with
43 the union, and by the end of the dispute in which an union
44 seized control of the premises which had opened with
45 non-union labour, McDonald's agreed to recognise a
46 different union and, apparently, according to the evidence,
47 all McDonald's stores in Mexico are unionised.
48
49 Puerto Rico in 1975, up to 1974 McDonald's employees have
50 been unionised. The company was sold to a new franchisee,
51 a dispute followed, closing all the stores, and McDonald's
52 pulled out of Puerto Rico lock, stock and barrel and
53 re-opened in 1980 with non-union labour. I am doing this
54 from old notes. I seem to remember Mr. Stein had been
55 there as well, been in Mexico inside the store at the
56 height of the conflict in Mexico, and Puerto Rico he was
57 involved with that as well, and I think that was one where
58 there were people that were involved who had run stores in
59 the States and transferred to Puerto Rico.
60
