Day 118 - 01 May 95 - Page 14
1 you are entitled not to pay overtime?
2 A. I do not need to.
3
4 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Mr. Nicholson is saying that the way it was
5 done was a legal way. You might be right or wrong about
6 that, but if you have something to put to him that says
7 that it is wrong, apart from page 646, which says it is not
8 a complete or authoritative statement of the law, is there
9 such a document? For all I know, you may be perfectly
10 right, but do you know what the authority for column 6 is,
11 where that comes from?
12
13 MS. STEEL: I do not know. That just says it is a summary of
14 what the position is.
15
16 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You see, they are notes for guidance. It may
17 not be a summary of what the position is. I do not know.
18 This is a new area to me. It may be, for instance, that
19 there is a minimum legal weekly rate as on page 639 -- that
20 there is a minimum legal hourly rate as on 639.
21
22 MS. STEEL: It is actually on page 641.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Right. Let us have a look at that.
25
26 MS. STEEL: Between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. the crew or the workers
27 should get an extra one-eighth of the hourly rate.
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You never asked, so far as you are aware, the
30 Department for a letter saying that the way you were doing
31 it was satisfactory?
32 A. I have spoken to the chief wages inspector for our
33 region about this, and he was quite satisfied that that was
34 acceptable because the wording is the occasional works "in
35 addition to the minimum rates". If our people were all
36 above the minimum rate, then that money had been paid, and
37 he was satisfied that the conditions had been met.
38
39 MS. STEEL: The workers who had not had a wage rise would not
40 be above the minimum wage; they would be at the minimum
41 rate?
42 A. It would be most unlikely for anyone who had not had a
43 wage rise to be asked to work overtime. They would be in a
44 learning position, 21 days.
45
46 Q. The maximum that they can get on the first wage rise is 15
47 pence anyway; is that not right?
48 A. Yes.
49
50 Q. That would only be the ones that were really outstanding?
51 A. At the end of 21 days, yes.
52
53 Q. Most of them would get between nothing and 10 pence which
54 would not be enough, would it, to make up either one-eighth
55 of the hourly rate in addition or one quarter of the hourly
56 rate in addition?
57 A. I am satisfied that the wages inspectors were unable to
58 find a single occasion on which a crew member was not
59 adequately remunerated, and met the requirements of the
60 Wages Council order.
