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experience:
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Waiter in restaurant frequented by McDonald's staff
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summary:
The witness clearly states that the owner of Orangeville McDonald's store, Cam Ballantyne, and other McDonald's associates who dined with him, had express aims to stop proposed unions from organising .... before the media got hold of it. Also Cam was held to have 'dealt with this (attempt at unionisation) before' and that there was a need to establish a 'taskforce' of people who had dealt with Sarah Inglis' (union organiser and crew member in Cam Ballantyne's store) attempt at unioinisation previously. This collusion clearly shows that there is a general and not just specific policy against unions at McDonald's as these representatives came from varying areas and within the organisation itself.
cv:
I am a waiter at the Glenn Cross restaurant, Orangeville, Ontario.
Full cv:
(not available for this witness)
full statement:
On or about the second week of September 1995, Cam Ballantyne, who I recognised as the owner of the local McDonald's store, entered the Glen Cross dining room for dinner with 4 -5 colleagues. Right away it was obvious that this was not just a personal meeting.
I served them all. They stayed for about 2 hours. I clearly overheard a total of about 10 to 15 minutes of conversation.
They were collectively discussing McDonald's business and Marketing ideas and strategy. They were clearly from McDonald's in senior positions
I first overheard some marketing talk, including:
"We need to do something about lunch specials as Tim Horton's is doing it - we need something on the same lines" etc. They then talked about McDonald's in Ottawa. Cam's colleagues were questioning him about the situation in the store there - it seemed that some of his colleagues were from that store, and were asking for his advice on what to do about attempts there to organise a trade union:
"Someone's trying to organise a Union."
"We want to stop it now before it gets to the media."
"You (Cam) have dealt with this before .... you know a lot about it."
Cam said:
You should definently clear it up before it comes to the media."
Cam and the other men said they would like to try and establish a task force of people who'd dealt with Sarah Inglis before and who knew how to deal with such a situation. Cam said:
"If the media or the public get hold of this information that will only make things worse."
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status:
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Statement read out
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references: Not applicable/ available
exhibits: Not applicable/ available
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