Day 140 - 22 Jun 95 - Page 03
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2 Q. Mira. When you told Mr. Mira -----
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4 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Could you spell that for me?
5 A. Yes. His first name is Camillo, C-A-M-I-L-L-O. Mira,
6 I believe, is M-I-R-A. It is Spanish, and my pronunciation
7 is probably terrible.
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9 MR. MORRIS: So when you say in your statement that you told him
10 he could not dismiss those employees, and -- well, you put
11 "for reasons such as those". Was that for distributing
12 leaflets and for, basically, calling for union elections?
13 A. What I was telling him was that, in my opinion, he
14 should not have dismissed them. He was telling me that his
15 lawyer had indicated that he had sufficient grounds,
16 because they were creating a disturbance in his restaurant
17 and that was why he had done it, and I told him I thought
18 the matter should be handled differently than dismissing
19 those members and that he really should reinstate them.
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21 Q. And proceed at once with committee elections?
22 A. Yes, exactly.
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24 Q. Which, of course, had already been ordered by the Labour
25 Court, anyway?
26 A. No, he had not, sir. When I spoke with him by 'phone,
27 he had not received any orders at all.
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29 Q. When you got there?
30 A. Yes.
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32 Q. You said: "I visited Madrid and told our joint venture
33 partner he could not dismiss employees for reasons such as
34 those and that he should proceed at once with committee
35 elections in the restaurants", which is, in fact, what he
36 had been ordered to do anyway by the NLRB -- not the NLRB,
37 the Labour Court?
38 A. OK, yes. By the time I got to Spain, that order had
39 come out. He was being advised by his lawyer that they
40 should appeal because the dismissals, in his lawyer's mind,
41 were appropriate.
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43 Q. So they were sacked for union activity?
44 A. He told me they were sacked for the disturbance that
45 was created in the restaurant.
46
47 Q. Yes, but they were sacked for union activity, were they
48 not?
49 A. Are you testifying or am I testifying?
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51 Q. I am asking you. I said "did they not".
52 A. I already said it, I think, twice, that I was told that
53 they were sacked because they created a disturbance in the
54 restaurant.
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56 Q. How many people -- we have heard some ----- (Pause)
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58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Was the reality this: he was saying that he
59 had been advised he could sack them because they had
60 created a disturbance in the restaurant?