Day 140 - 22 Jun 95 - Page 03

     
     1
     2   Q.   Mira.  When you told Mr. Mira -----
     3
     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.
     8
     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.
    20
    Q.   And proceed at once with committee elections?
    22        A.  Yes, exactly.
    23
    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.
    28
    29   Q.   When you got there?
    30        A.  Yes.
    31
    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,
         were appropriate.
    42
    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?
    50 
    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.
    55
    56   Q.   How many people -- we have heard some -----  (Pause)
    57
    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?