Day 195 - 04 Dec 95 - Page 10


     
     1        about late closes but turned a blind eye to them.  In any
     2        event, if there are only two or three stores in a
     3        particular area, the Area Supervisor is in contact with
     4        each store almost daily and, therefore, it is impossible to
     5        hide late closes.
     6
     7        If late shift work would involve a female employee under
     8        the age of 18 carrying on past 10 o'clock, or a male
     9        employee under the age of 18 carrying on past 12 o'clock,
    10        they would be asked if they wanted to work past these
    11        hours.  If they agreed, they would in fact work the same
    12        hours as anyone else.  Most people who were asked did not
    13        agree to do the extra hours, but a few did and these were
    14        always the ones who were asked since it was taken for
    15        granted that they would carry on.  The management did not
    16        put pressure on under 18 year olds to work these hours.
    17        Some under 18 year olds worked extremely long shifts up
    18        until perhaps 6.00 a.m.
    19
    20        One of the people I referred to earlier as having worked 26
    21        hour shift was a 17 year old girl", is that Tracy Milleine?
    22        A.  That is correct.
    23
    24   Q.   "I specifically remember that on one occasion, having
    25        worked that number of hours, the girl could barely stand on
    26        her feet and was close to collapse.  As far as I know, she
    27        worked those sorts of hours because she desperately needed
    28        the money.  She had problems at home with her parents and
    29        had to leave home and support herself.  Sometimes she did
    30        not want to work such long hours, but they would phone her
    31        up and threaten that if she did not do the hours they would
    32        not offer her the 'overtime' again.  They knew that she
    33        needed the extra hours and took advantage of this fact.
    34
    35        Other kinds of pressure were applied.  For example,
    36        employees such as she were told that they would not be
    37        promoted if they did not do the extra hours.  Some people,
    38        if they had been there perhaps for a year or more, did not
    39        want to find that they were back at the bottom of the
    40        promotion ladder again, in another store or in another line
    41        of work altogether, and they would therefore stay.    They
    42        had too much to lose by this stage.  Accordingly, all the
    43        extra time would just become part and parcel of what they
    44        needed to do in order to keep going and get promotion.
    45        People came to terms with it as a fact of life.
    46
    47        While I was at Colchester, one of the full-time crew
    48        members, a 17 year old male, had decided to go part-time
    49        and do his 'A' levels by evening course.  After having
    50        announced this to management, he was approached by the 
    51        First Manager who said that he wanted a chat with the 
    52        employee because he wanted to make him an offer he could 
    53        not refuse.  I knew that the boy was going for this chat
    54        and knew what had been said by the Manager in advance.
    55
    56        After the chat had taken place, the boy announced that he
    57        had given up the idea of doing his A levels and now wanted
    58        to stay on full-time.  Later the boy told me that the
    59        change of heart was a direct consequence of the meeting but
    60        he never told me what was offered to him.  I believe that

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