Day 303 - 19 Nov 96 - Page 05

     
     1        be that a significant proportion of people who work at
     2        McDonald's work there as a stopgap.  It does not
     3        necessarily thwart your argument about various matters, but
     4        they work at McDonald's when nothing better is available,
     5        you might say, and then when something else does crop up
     6        which is more to their taste, they go, and some of them go
     7        without notice.
     8
     9   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.
    10
    11   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  But whether that means positively
    12        dissatisfied or never having seen it as more than a stopgap
    13        job anyway, might be pure speculation.
    14
    15   MR. MORRIS:  That might be true, but that would certainly still
    16        reflect on the quality of employment at McDonald's either
    17        way, we would say, and that might indeed be a very
    18        realistic approach to take because, to be honest, why do
    19        not all the people come back year after year, decade after
    20        decade, if they have got such a young profile, because
         people basically do not want to work there once they have
    22        experienced it.
    23
    24        But can I just say another thing; that in the documents
    25        that were disclosed about 'One Every Mile', and I think it
    26        is in volume 15, tab 108, pink volume 15, do you remember
    27        there were questionnaires and then there were some crew rap
    28        session notes that the researchers for the One Every Mile,
    29        including Ann Tobin had received from McDonald's.
    30
    31        On page 1 of that series of documents, which is a small "1"
    32        in the bottom right-hand corner, 1987, the last question
    33        was:  "What are the most common reasons given for leaving
    34        McDonald's at crew level?"  There are other questions about
    35        management level.  And the answer to that is:  "To another
    36        job".  The only category -- there is no category in the
    37        leaving questionnaire that says 'to another job', but it
    38        struck me that the personal category, which is actually the
    39        largest -- well, equal with 'return to school or college'
    40        of 23 per cent would cover people that are leaving to go to
         another job.
    42
    43   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  The thing about 'personal' and 'without
    44        notice' is that they do not essentially give any reason at
    45        all.
    46
    47   MR. MORRIS:  No.
    48
    49   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  There may be a genuine personal reason, but
    50        it could be a convenient cover-up for just not choosing to
    51        say or wanting to say.
    52
    53   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.
    54
    55   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  And the same is more even strongly so in the
    56        'without notice'.  You do not even say 'I have a personal
    57        reason'; you just go.
    58
    59   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.
    60