Day 303 - 19 Nov 96 - Page 38


     
     1        is that McDonald's exaggeration of the effects of the
     2        turnover of the students and percentage of staff, but even
     3        on our construction with the reasons for leaving chart it
     4        is clearly a very small part of the turnover anyway.
     5
     6        I think I am on course for four o'clock.  Just a couple of
     7        things.  When Mr. Nicholson was being questioned about the
     8        Crew Handbook and the reality of the banning of the basic
     9        rights to put up posters and give out leaflets and hold
    10        meetings, and that kind of stuff, just as to emphasise how
    11        clear he was on the subject, if that can be re-read again.
    12        He was completely crystal clear, and it was on day 120,
    13        I think it was a number of pages.  I have pages 4 and 5 in
    14        front of me.  These were not admissions that were dragged
    15        out of him kicking and screaming, these were pretty
    16        straightforward basically.
    17
    18        I will not bother to read those out because I have only a
    19        couple of pages.
    20
    21        A couple of things from Mr. Preston, very small points.  On
    22        day 6 he admitted that staff were trained to sell up in
    23        terms of portions, sizes, not to offer a regular size, and
    24        he admitted that staff were required to smile even when
    25        busy and working under pressure.
    26
    27        To move on to something completely different, the tab 15,
    28        McDonald's development programme.  I think it is from pink
    29        12, 'profit unit activity 3', which is bundle pages, 595 to
    30        6,600 and also page 613 are quite informative as to how the
    31        cutting wage costs are a systematic calculation, and which
    32        I think should be seen in the light of all the evidence
    33        that has been heard on the subject because we interpreted
    34        this in a very particular way, that it was clear that they
    35        were talking about minimum wage costs.  Obviously, they
    36        have to have it so they can keep operating and selling the
    37        products to the customers, but otherwise it would be nought
    38        per cent wage costs.  But it is clear the balancing act is
    39        to reduce the wage costs to the absolute minimum and still
    40        scrape out the production targets to satisfy the customers.
    41
    42        I think the late night working for males and females, the
    43        bans on over certain times, was law up to 1989 because the
    44        memo from Sid Nicholson on 19th January 1990, which
    45        I cannot remember which file it is in, it is bundle page
    46        number 706, was the one about still having a policy of the
    47        maximum number of 39 hours applying to all employees but
    48        that the late night working deadline no longer applied,
    49        although they said no one should work past -- no young
    50        person should work past -- midnight, which was a company
    51        policy.
    52
    53        Helen says that day 6, page 16 was when I put the young
    54        people working over 96 hours in a fortnight to Mr. Preston,
    55        and it was Croydon store that featured quite regularly
    56        despite Mr. Preston's exasperation that obviously something
    57        would be done because that was the whole purpose of that
    58        information, he said.
    59
    60        I think also in the Clive Williams' documents, which was

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