Day 301 - 15 Nov 96 - Page 07
1 the facts that are in the document, as far as we
2 understand, and there are not any facts at all to show or
3 indicate that me and Helen knew that was not true and that
4 it is not true. The only facts, so-called facts, about
5 that subject -- we are going to come on to the counterclaim
6 later but while it crosses my mind -- is about how
7 McDonald's had written to London Greenpeace or us,
8 whatever, a number of times, which we all know is a load of
9 rubbish, anyway.
10
11 So, on the main what's it like working for McDonald's.
12 There must be a serious.... This is reading from the fact
13 sheet. I am thinking on my feet. Before I go into the
14 detail, the context is clearly one, and it has been said
15 for all the issues, of criticism of the food industry and,
16 if you like, capitalism in general or multi-national
17 corporations in general and the profits system in general,
18 and I think, obviously with this particular section, the
19 context which is specified as clear as day is the catering
20 industry as a whole. It does not really distinguish at all
21 between McDonald's and the catering industry, which it is
22 obviously part of.
23
24 Again, we would say that there is clearly no obligation on
25 us to have to show that McDonald's is worse than the rest
26 of the catering industry, and that general point, of
27 course, applies to all the sections unless there is
28 something specifically stated how they are worse in any of
29 the fact sheets. All the drift of the fact sheet is to say
30 that they are part of something that is collectively a
31 problem at a number of levels.
32
33 But having said that, I think we have demonstrated for all
34 the sections that -- where appropriate, we have
35 demonstrated that McDonald's has a particular
36 responsibility because of practices that it has pioneered
37 or because of its huge influence, or whatever.
38
39 It is relevant to this section because, although it does
40 not actually say that McDonald's is worse than any of the
41 other chain stores or junk food giants, as it says in the
42 second part of the section, we can say that evidence in
43 this case has shown that McDonald's have pioneered certain
44 practices and, in fact, McDonald's has a reputation for
45 being a by-word for exploitation of workers and they have
46 been given the name 'Mcjob'. These are Mcjobs which we
47 would say is a by-word for lack of rights, low pay, and
48 hard work in stressful conditions, or whatever, with no
49 guaranteed hours, things like that.
50
51 We would say that reputation is well deserved by
52 McDonald's. So that is a bit of a look at what we feel the
53 context of this issue is. They have a reputation for being
54 anti-union and a reputation for low pay, reputation for
55 hard work.
56
57 Actually, it is quite interesting. When you look at the
58 counterclaim, the press release, which is the subject of
59 the counterclaim, where McDonald's attempt to defend or put
60 their case on various issues, they do not often deal with
