Day 301 - 15 Nov 96 - Page 40
1 professional union witnesses was that it was a very hard
2 row to hoe anyway, because a large number of people were
3 part-timers, they have other interests which were more in
4 the front of their mind than their employment, they may not
5 have been going to stay long anyway. So there were lots of
6 practical difficulties in their way, quite apart from the
7 attitude of McDonald's.
8
9 MR. MORRIS: Yes, but they did both point out that there are
10 union agreements in similar set-ups, that they had
11 experience of. If the company was not hostile, then it
12 would become a reality in McDonald's. That is the
13 implication.
14
15 Anyway, eventually it all turned out to be academic,
16 because, despite these acknowledgments, he said that no one
17 would be allowed to collect subscriptions, put up notices,
18 pass out leaflets, organise any meeting for staff to
19 discuss conditions at the store on the premises or to
20 inform the union about conditions inside the stores. They
21 are all direct quotes one after another, on day 120,
22 pages 4 and 5.
23
24 The last one, informing the union about conditions inside
25 the stores, he said would be deemed gross misconduct and,
26 as such, a summary sackable offence. That was on day 119,
27 page 52, lines 48 to 57.
28
29 This is effectively a complete -- this is all from the crew
30 handbook -- complete assault on any attempt to unionise or
31 have union rights or indeed any workers' rights inside
32 McDonald's stores.
33
34 Faced with that, you put to him that in summary "they would
35 not be allowed to carry out any overt union activity on
36 McDonald's premises", and he agreed. In fact, he said
37 "absolutely correct". That was his answer. That was day
38 120, page 5, line 29. So again, we would say that is the
39 end of that subject really. That is the head of personnel
40 at the relevant time in the UK, where this case is based.
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Let me just ask about that, because there may
43 be two considerations here. One is being against having
44 unionisation of people employed by McDonald's, and the
45 other is dismissing people or forcing them out if they show
46 interest in joining a union or in union organising.
47
48 Now, I would have thought the second allegation, which is
49 made in the leaflet, is defamatory at the moment, because
50 I would have thought most people would say that to sack
51 someone for what would otherwise be lawful union activity
52 is not good enough.
53
54 But I am not at all convinced that it is defamatory to say
55 of a firm that they are anti-union, that they have a policy
56 of not having union organisation. There may be different
57 views about that. Depending to some extent on your
58 political view, you might or might not think that is
59 defamatory.
60
