Day 155 - 14 Jul 95 - Page 30


     
     1   Q.   Do you think that the yellow badge people were stupid?
     2        A.  No.
     3
     4   Q.   Did they have an awful lot of power?
     5        A.  No.
     6
     7   Q.   Do you think that their wages were lousey?
     8        A.  They were one of the highest paid in the restaurant.  I
     9        do not know the exact figure, but they were well looked
    10        after by myself.
    11
    12   Q.   I am not going to read much more than this.  He
    13        says -- these are yellow badges, I think -- "They got
    14        absolutely nothing out of it" and I do not know what that
    15        means at all.  then he says, "Yet they managed to treat the
    16        people below them as badly as they were treated
    17        themselves". Mr. Giardina, if you found yellow badged
    18        people treating people below them like dirt, to use
    19        Mr. Magee's phrase, what would you have done?
    20        A.  They would not have been given the option to actually
    21        progress into the hierarchy because one of the main things
    22        to be an area leader or an area manager is to be
    23        professional, have a good attitude, etc. etc., and
    24        obviously that would not have been one of the qualities
    25        that they possessed if they continuously did that.
    26
    27   Q.   I am on the same page, my Lord, page 9, of Mr. Magee's
    28        statement.  Again, I will read it to you.  He says:
    29        "Another matter which did not help was that I was
    30        thoroughly fed up with working on a Saturday night".  Was
    31        anybody compelled to work on a Saturday night?
    32        A.  No.  Whatever availability would be put by the person
    33        wanting employment on his application form, whatever they
    34        put down, that is what we would adhere to.  That is what
    35        the crew availability is.
    36
    37   Q.   So there would be no question of somebody saying:  "Well,
    38        I want to work Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays" and you
    39        saying:  "Sorry, mate, you cannot.  You have to come in on
    40        Saturday night"?
    41        A.  No.
    42
    43   Q.   He goes on:  "I felt that I was working so many hours and
    44        getting so little pay" -- we will ignore that -- "I was
    45        convinced that I was being cheated" -- notice that word,
    46        please -- "and not being paid for all the hours that
    47        I worked". Are you conscious, Mr. Giardina, of ever having
    48        cheated anybody that worked for you by not paying them for
    49        the hours they worked?
    50        A.  No. 
    51 
    52   Q.   He goes on:  "My average weekly pay was approximately œ25 
    53        maximum.  The most I ever got paid in one week was œ35.
    54        For this I was doing 15 to 20 hours of very hard, physical,
    55        sweaty work".  How would you characterise the kind of work
    56        which an ordinary crew member does at McDonald's?
    57        A.  Based on the restaurant, once you have got your system
    58        set up, you have got your people -- I can only speak of
    59        that sort of scenario -- but once we had enough people,
    60        once we had the right calibre of staff, that is why the

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