Day 172 - 12 Oct 95 - Page 12

     
     1        so low"?
     2        A.  Yes.
     3
     4   Q.   Is that right?
     5        A.  Yes.
     6
     7   Q.   Did it occur to you that one reason they might be happy at
     8        McDonald's is because they do not agree that their pay is
     9        low; did that occur to you?
    10        A.  Many things occurred to me, one of them being they are
    11        very grateful to have a job; that is probably the main one
    12        that jumps out.
    13
    14   Q.   He told you, in answer to your question about low pay: "We
    15        pay the going rate worldwide"?
    16        A.  Yes.
    17
    18   Q.   He said something like: "Young people are an inexhaustible
    19        supply of labour worldwide, but McDonald's give a lot of
    20        young people their first step on the road to employment,
         and we are doing a public service."  Are you telling us
    22        that he actually used the word "inexhaustible"?  It may be
    23        of some importance, because he has to come back to court.
    24        A.  Well, a word that meant the same thing, yes -- a
    25        regular supply of young people in employment throughout the
    26        world, recessions; tens of thousands of young people go
    27        straight to McDonald's straight from school; it is the
    28        first job they know.  I believe he was telling me about the
    29        true happiness to have the unions and things like that.
    30        (sic)
    31
    32   Q.   When you wrote to Corinne Reed Comfort with the impressions
    33        that you have reported in those letters about a happy and
    34        enthusiastic work force that might be an example to
    35        industry elsewhere in the world, those were sincere, those
    36        sentiments?
    37        A.  Indeed, they were, because most of my life was at that
    38        time writing about industrial strife.
    39
    40   Q.   Yes.  1986 -----
         A.  It was a bad decade.
    42
    43   Q.   That was 1990, these letters are?
    44        A.  Correct.
    45
    46   Q.   Going back to Mr. Nicholson, are you quite certain that you
    47        got his home telephone number from Head Office?
    48        A.  I cannot think of where else I would have obtained it.
    49
    50   Q.   Do you think that if you did have a conversation with 
    51        Mr. Nicholson -- and I have to tell you, it is only fair 
    52        I should, that he has no recollection of ever having spoken 
    53        to you in his life, but there it is -- do you think that,
    54        in effect, your conversation with Mr. Nicholson about
    55        McDonald's and the unions was really broadly the same as
    56        your conversation with Mr. Preston that you have just
    57        reported to us?
    58        A.  It may well have been similar.  I would have --
    59        obviously, the main difference being that I would have told
    60        Mr. Nicholson who I was, what I did for a living, who