Day 303 - 19 Nov 96 - Page 04

     
     1
     2   MR. MORRIS:  And for XYZ reasons, basically.  He quoted the
     3        Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978.  In fact,
     4        Mr. Rampton quoted this to him on page 21, line 20 of day
     5        181 - "Every employee shall have the right not to have
     6        action (short of dismissal) taken against him as an
     7        individual by his employer for the purpose of (a)
     8        preventing or deterring him from being or seeking to become
     9        a member of an independent trade union, or penalising him
    10        for doing so; or (b) preventing or deterring him from
    11        taking part in the activities of an independent trade union
    12        at any appropriate time, or penalising him for doing so."
    13
    14        That is diametrically contradicted by McDonald's own Crew
    15        Handbook and that has helpfully been read out by
    16        Mr. Rampton, and therefore we would say that McDonald's
    17        Crew Handbook is clearly illegal or unlawful, or was at the
    18        time when that Trade Union Act applied, because it is
    19        incitement against the staff of McDonald's to give up their
    20        statutory rights.
    21
    22        Obviously, the Company, by enforcing those lack of rights,
    23        is committing an offence under that Act every time that any
    24        of those provisions are threatened or implemented.
    25
    26        There is a lot about Dave McGee which is just repetitive.
    27        He goes on at page 25....  I will come to that later.
    28        I wanted to say something else about the reasons for
    29        leaving document, if I can find it, of course.  I will
    30        skate over that.  Sorry, I would rather not speak and I am
    31        skating through a lot of stuff so it will save time.
    32        (Pause)
    33
    34   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  When you say the reasons for leaving, do you
    35        mean leavers by termination code, Miss Reed's document B,
    36        I think?
    37
    38   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.  I was going to say about that document....
    39        Did you get it out?
    40
    MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I have it in front of me now.
    42
    43   MR. MORRIS:  I might as well deal with that if I can find it.
    44
    45   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You have said bits about it already.
    46
    47   MR. MORRIS:  Yes, I was going to -- I was looking at it last
    48        night.  From memory anyway, the leaving without notice,
    49        where people are denied their holiday pay for doing so,
    50        I will submit, must be a substantial amount of
    51        dissatisfaction.
    52
    53        Actually, I know why I wanted to check it.  Yes, I have it
    54        here.  On top of what else has been said about the very
    55        high levels of dissatisfaction specifically recorded
    56        already -----
    57
    58   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  One thing which occurs to me is that it may
    59        be dissatisfaction in the sense that you no longer want to
    60        work for McDonald's rather than anywhere else, but it may