Day 102 - 13 Mar 95 - Page 26
1 Q. About the same frequency as you?
2 A. No, I think more often.
3
4 Q. How many teams are there at present of catchers?
5 A. I think for catching chickens it would probably be
6 eight or nine teams.
7
8 Q. Are they employed by Sun Valley or are they contract
9 catchers?
10 A. They are some that are employed by Sun Valley and some
11 that are contract.
12
13 Q. How many are employed by Sun Valley, how many teams?
14 A. About 25 per cent of the teams are employed by Sun
15 Valley, perhaps 75 per cent are on contract.
16
17 Q. That is something that has changed over the past couple of
18 years, has it not?
19 A. Yes, it has changed. There used to be all company
20 catchers.
21
22 Q. You have been replacing the company catchers with cheaper
23 catchers on the contracts?
24 A. The contract has been brought in to make it more cost
25 effective certainly for the company.
26
27 Q. The contract catchers have smaller teams, do they not?
28 A. I am not aware of the numbers in the teams.
29
30 Q. You do not know?
31 A. No. I was not aware that it was any different. It may
32 be one person less.
33
34 Q. The contract catchers are expected to load more loads in a
35 night, are they not?
36 A. I was not aware specifically that they were expected to
37 do that. Certainly, the rules as they are laid down do not
38 expect people to work under unreasonable pressure.
39
40 Q. How many loads do you say Sun Valley expect a team to load
41 in a night?
42 A. I am not sure that I really know the answer to that
43 question.
44
45 Q. Are you saying you have no idea?
46 A. I am saying I do not know.
47
48 Q. Is that not something that would affect welfare?
49 A. Of course it would, but what I am saying is that we are
50 not asking any teams to work under unreasonable pressure,
51 and we do have a good comparison of our own requirements
52 versus the rest of the industry. I am reliably told that
53 our requirements per person and per team are less than the
54 average for the industry. In other words, we are not
55 asking as much as the industry average.
56
57 Q. How do you know whether you are asking the teams to work
58 under unreasonable pressure if you do not know how many
59 loads they are supposed to do in a night?
60 A. I am not specifically an expert on numbers and the
