Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 28
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Nine to half past five, I would think of as
2 a 37 and a half hour week, which is still fairly standard
3 in some places, is it not? But I mean, if I have
4 overlooked -- I just do not think I had any evidence on it,
5 did I, about comparisons?
6
7 MR. MORRIS: I can't remember now.
8
9 MR. JUSTICE BELL: None of this has anything to do with your
10 points about when you get your breaks, whether you are
11 expected to come back early or anything like that; it is
12 just whether I can say that McDonald's treat their
13 employees badly because they do not pay them during their
14 -----
15
16 MR. MORRIS: They do not pay them during their break, no.
17 I would say, anyway, you should be paid, it should be
18 recognised as part of your work time. If you are being
19 paid for your break, it is obviously going to be counted as
20 part of your work time and therefore it goes towards the,
21 you know, total hours that you actually have been present
22 at work, and on top of that you should be paid overtime.
23 I still say it is part of the whole picture. Because if
24 they were paid, it would certainly be in the calculations.
25
26 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Right.
27
28 MR. MORRIS: Can I just say a helpful -- I am not sure whether
29 we looked at it in the case, it is in McDonald's personnel
30 policies and procedures manual which was served quite
31 late. I don't know where it got put. But it was a large
32 document and there was a whole... It was dated 1988,
33 August 1988, and it was pages 27 and 28 of one of the
34 bundles, as far as I can see, and has all the legal
35 obligations, what McDonald's calls 'legal obligations
36 regarding hours of work'. We may have looked at it
37 briefly.
38
39 It seems to be the company's position on what their
40 obligations were under the law regarding Sunday working,
41 under 18 year-olds, which applied at that time, rest days,
42 how the time records should be filled out. In fact, while
43 I am on this document, if I can make a couple of points on
44 it, here it says point 2A, 'it is illegal for any young
45 person to work more than 48 hours in any one week'.
46 However, the company policy is that hourly paid employees
47 should not work more than 39 hours in any one week.
48
49 There are other various restrictions. No young person can
50 commence work before 6 a.m. There is the ones we have
51 heard a lot of in this case, obviously, about at one time
52 it was illegal to work past ten o'clock if you were a
53 female, past twelve if you were a male and under 18. There
54 were all kinds of provisions about Sunday working, if you
55 work on Sunday they must receive a day off during that same
56 week, if you work for more than four hours on a Sunday. If
57 you do, if one of your working days is a Sunday, you must
58 also be given a relevant half or full day off. That is
59 rest days.
60
