Day 144 - 28 Jun 95 - Page 20
1 or?
2 A. I do not understand the question.
3
4 Q. Or religious organisations or environmentalist groups?
5 A. I do not understand the question.
6
7 Q. The relations between McDonald's staff who are members of a
8 union when there is an agreement with the union cannot be
9 compared to employees' interest or lack of interest in an
10 insurance salesman or an environmentalist group, can they?
11 A. I have no idea what you are asking me.
12
13 Q. You have said that regulations that may prevent employees
14 from conducting union activity would apply to insurance
15 salesmen, for example, or environmentalist groups --
16 I think Mr. Copeland said environmentalist groups -- and
17 churches; trade unions are completely -----
18
19 MR. JUSTICE BELL: They are different but the gist of what
20 Mr. Stein has said, for better or worse, is that what the
21 provision was batting against originally was anything which
22 might distract employers from their work or customers from
23 their enjoyment of the restaurant and, therefore, it did
24 not matter whether it was handing out union leaflets or
25 something in relation to insurance sales. That is what he
26 has said so far. He has not said unions are just the same
27 as any life insurance company.
28
29 MR. MORRIS: Mr. Copeland -----
30
31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What you want to argue to me is: "Well, that
32 may be so but you are only too happy to avail yourself of
33 the provision to prevent union activity". Quite frankly,
34 that is a comment which you are going to make at the end of
35 the case, not just on the basis of one bit of evidence here
36 or one bit of evidence there, but on the overall picture.
37
38 MR. MORRIS: But do you accept that a trade union and the
39 relationship between McDonald's employees and trade unions
40 are fundamentally different in terms of rights of your
41 employees than their relations with any other organisation?
42 A. That is so broad in scope. What is the obligation of a
43 person to their spouse and a representative of their spouse
44 in a matter? I mean, you are going so far afield in asking
45 me about respective rights and privileges of people, I have
46 no idea where you are going. I have tried to be as direct
47 as possible, telling you why the rule exists, what we try
48 to do in practice as a result of it, and you are asking me
49 about things that are so broad in scope and so abstract
50 that it is impossible to answer you.
51
52 Q. Is there any other organisation of any other type, apart
53 from a trade union, which McDonald's has made an agreement
54 with that it can represent the interests of McDonald's
55 employees and negotiate?
56
57 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You suggest some other type of organisation
58 whom such an agreement might be made with. I thought we
59 got to this the other day, that there may be, for instance,
60 a different situation in Germany with employees'
