Day 163 - 25 Sep 95 - Page 23
1 That, I should have said, is from the Business Wire Inc. --
2 presumably, that is a press agency.
3
4 The next point: "McDonald's stores in the USA have been
5 warned, cited, prosecuted, fined or otherwise criticised by
6 the relevant authorities for violation of youth employment
7 codes and laws". Before going to the specifics cited
8 there, if we could turn to page 24, in fact, 23 and 24,
9 this comes from the Los Angeles Times, July 30th, 1991,
10 about the House Government Operations Subcommittee on
11 Employment and Housing which, to summarise, was doing an
12 investigation into child labour violations which,
13 I believe, Mr. Stein had actually participated in, I think
14 that is fair to say from his evidence.
15
16 If we note the last sentence in the middle section of page
17 24, it says: "The Subcommittee held hearings last year
18 involving the four largest violators nationwide, Burger
19 King, Dominoes, McDonald's and Little Cesars." All the
20 violations in that article are child labour laws
21 violations. It may or may not matter whether they are the
22 worst or the best, but the point is it happens.
23
24 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I intervene at this point because this
25 was put to Mr. Stein in cross-examination. Mr. Stein told
26 Mr. Morris that, in fact, this was wrong; that the other
27 organisations mentioned had been criticised but McDonald's
28 had not been criticised. It had been accepted that
29 McDonald's have not been guilty of these practices. When
30 he got that answer, Mr. Morris said: "OK, let us go
31 through some specifics then".
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What is the reference there?
34
35 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, that is 29th June this year, page 20.
36 Probably one needs to start on the previous page, page 19
37 at the bottom, and go down to line 46 at the bottom of page
38 20. Day 145.
39
40 MR. MORRIS: That does not change my reasonable belief at all
41 that the Los Angeles Times report that McDonald's is one of
42 the four largest violators of the child labour laws,
43 McDonald's stores -----
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Where does it say that?
46
47 MR. MORRIS: Sorry, that is in the last sentence of the middle
48 paragraph on page 24.
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Where does it say it is one of the largest
51 violators?
52
53 MR. MORRIS: No, one of the four largest.
54
55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Involving the four largest violators.
56
57 MR. MORRIS: Yes, the four largest violators nationwide which
58 includes McDonald's in the top four.
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But how are you going to get evidence of
