Day 207 - 23 Jan 96 - Page 51
1
2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The difficulty is you have pointed to the
3 document. I have taken that on board. I do not know
4 whether it is a significant point or not because I do not
5 know what "excess hours" means.
6
7 MR. MORRIS: Right. Anyway, to move on to Lee Richards on
8 page 301.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Give the dividers if you can because that
11 helps us get there more quickly.
12
13 MR. MORRIS: Sorry. It is probably divider 2. In fact, it is
14 divider 2. Lee Richards, towards the middle of that page,
15 between pages 301 and 325 he manages to have nine days
16 continuous work at McDonald's. We do not have to look at
17 everyone. Would you accept that, really, scheduling at
18 McDonald's in terms of protection of employee rights at the
19 Bath store at times that we have looked at in all the
20 questioning is, basically, a mess?
21 A. No, because the hours worked by an individual may not
22 be the hours that they were scheduled. Lee Richards is a
23 person who worked over the summer period who was a student,
24 so he may have worked extra shifts.
25
26 Q. So, despite saying yesterday about that people should not
27 be scheduled more than five days, but that, OK, in
28 exceptional circumstances, it can be up to 7, it is
29 actually fine with you to schedule people or for people to
30 work for nine days in a row as long as they are willing to?
31 A. In this case, he has worked for nine days in a row.
32 I cannot answer the reason why he has done it.
33
34 Q. Because he needs the money, presumably?
35 A. Obviously, he would work for money.
36
37 Q. And the pay at McDonald's is so bad that people have to put
38 in as many hours as they can get, because they need the
39 money?
40 A. No. I think Lee Richards just, basically, wanted the
41 money. He was a student; he would work during the summer
42 period.
43
44 MR. MORRIS: In case there is anything else I wanted to say on
45 that, I will check for a minute. I think I will leave it
46 at that on that subject.
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Have you got any eight or nine days ones
49 which are not in August?
50
51 MR. MORRIS: To be honest, those are the ones which I checked.
52
53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The ones you have given me so far are all in
54 early August. The difficulty is, I suppose, that since
55 I only ordered disclosure of -- I will wipe that point from
56 my mind, since the only months were August 1993 and May and
57 August of 1994. What may be germane, since we do have a
58 month which is not August, namely May 1994, is see if there
59 are any consecutive days there.
60
