name: Geir Oivind Gulliksen

section: Employment - CEA

for: The Defence

experience: Works as a crew member in a Norwegian McDonald's franchise.

summary:

The witness provides an account of the dictatorial management style that existed in the store specifically with regard to employment practice and retention of services. In order to safeguard their positions the workers had to establish a union after the owner arbitrarily sacked several employees.

Then he started to read a whole list of names, including mine, and after that he said: "The names that I read now can leave, because the rest of the meeting will not be of any interest for them anyway."

cv:

Full cv:
(not available for this witness)

full statement:

THE McDONALD'S-CASE IN NORWAY

I hereby want to tell about the McDonald's -case in Porsgrunn, Norway. When we were on our first information meeting with McDonalds we were told that everyone of us were going to be sent to other restaurants in Norway and train to be a McDonald's employee.

One of my present colleagues asked : "What will our salary be per hour, when we are going to work our whole easter-holiday ?" Our employer answered: "You are going to work for free, and those who starts to argue about that, I won't have in my achievement."

Of course, it was completely silent. Nobody said nothing until we were out of the door. Then everybody asked: "Can he do this? What says the law?" We contacted the HRAF (the hotel- an restaurantworkers trade union in Norway) who was willing to help us, but first we had to organise us in their trade union. Some of us did that, and HRAF started to work.

After pressure our employer dectded to pay us 38'-nok per hour in our easter- holiday.

After a few weeks it was time for the opening of the McDonalds restaurant in Porsgrunn. We soon noticed that the restaurant didn't go as well as it should. And then, a couple of months after the opening, our employer called for a meeting with all the crew employees in our restaurant. He started the meeting with this: "I am sorry to tell you this, but our restaurant does not go as well as it should so I have to give some of you the notice."

So we had to leave. We contacted HRAF and the press to tell them what who has happened. After a couple of days with enormous press-covering I received a phone call from Theo Holm who said that we were given our jobs back. Now for a month ago, our employer resigned and a new one was appointed. Did McDonalds Norway know about this? I do not know. All I can say is that our present employer is very nice. And that McDonald's should be much more strict when they employ franchise- operators in the future.

date signed: Not dated

status: Statement was read out in court under the Civil Evidence Act.
references: Not applicable/available
exhibits: Not applicable/ available

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