Day 301 - 15 Nov 96 - Page 09

     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Just listen for a moment.  What the
     2        Plaintiffs have pleaded is, firstly, pay bad wages and
     3        provide bad working conditions, taking advantage of the
     4        absence of the existence of any specific union for their
     5        workers and adopting a policy of preventing unionisation by
     6        getting rid of pro-union workers.  Well, query whether
     7        paying bad wages and providing bad conditions is
     8        defamatory, I would have thought it might be defamatory if
     9        you take the two together.  It might not be defamatory to
    10        say someone pays low wages or to say that working
    11        conditions with them are poor, but I can see it might be
    12        said it is defamatory if you not only give poor working
    13        conditions but pay badly as well.  In other words, you do
    14        not compensate for poor working conditions by paying proper
    15        compensation.
    16
    17        Then taking advantage of the absence or existence of any
    18        specific union for their workers, query whether that part
    19        would be defamatory.  Getting rid of the pro-union workers,
    20        I would have thought at the moment was defamatory.  And
         then have taken advantage of the absence of the minimum
    22        wage in Britain to pay what they like helping thereby to
    23        depress wages in the catering trade.  Query whether that is
    24        actually defamatory.
    25
    26        Are only interested in recruiting cheap labour.  Query
    27        whether that it is defamatory.  And to this end exploit
    28        disadvantaged groups, women and black people especially.
    29        I can see that that might be defamatory without putting
    30        wrongly or improperly before exploit, because if you take
    31        exploit and disadvantaged groups together then it might be
    32        said it clearly means wrongly exploit or improperly
    33        exploit.
    34
    35   MR. MORRIS:   Yes, that is a misinterpretation of what it says.
    36
    37   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Well, maybe, but I have only run through
    38        that, not because I am indicating any conclusion one way or
    39        the other at this stage, but to try and get you started on
    40        telling me what, if anything, in this part of the leaflet
         you would accept is defamatory.  You may say none of it is,
    42        it is just a statement of the facts of life and it is not
    43        defamatory.
    44
    45   MR. MORRIS:   I don't know.  It is a difficult, you know.
    46
    47   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   You see, a lot of what is set out in your
    48        pleading at the moment of the meaning you would seek to
    49        justify, does not seem to me to be defamatory at all.  The
    50        only two parts -- it is quite a long meaning, meaning H --
    51        the only two parts which seem to me are defamatory is the
    52        dismissal of pro-union workers and, at the very end,
    53        exploitation of groups such as women and black people who
    54        are generally disadvantaged in industry, which might or
    55        might not be defamatory.
    56
    57        But I mean, really, either today or early next week, I need
    58        some help from you and Ms. Steel, if she wants to offer
    59        anything on it, because an awful lot of what is in the text
    60        of employment seems to me to be not defamatory at all.