Day 259 - 10 Jun 96 - Page 36
1 Q. It was not routinely passed on to you that if store audits
2 had discovered information showing that improper things
3 were occurring or policies were not being followed, or
4 whatever, that would routinely be passed on to you (sic)?
5 A. I would have seen sight of something like that, and if
6 it had directly involved my department or the calculation
7 of wages, I would have been asked to look at it. But I do
8 not remember any specific incident like that.
9
10 Q. You do not remember any incident like that?
11 A. No.
12
13 Q. OK. Are you saying that you do not remember because you
14 your memory is bad or because you do not think that you
15 ever got any kind of information like that from store
16 level?
17 A. My memory is very good about the period of time that
18 I worked for McDonald's, so it is not through a memory
19 lapse, no. We did not have many complaints; and if there
20 were any discrepancies, they were put right.
21
22 Q. You do not know that, do you, because you would not know
23 what other people were doing; you could only know what
24 information you were receiving?
25 A. That is right. It is a very large company -- even
26 then.
27
28 Q. That is right. Did you have a responsibility for checking
29 that -- if people were working, say, illegal hours, say
30 under-18s were working past midnight, something like that,
31 would that have come to your attention as payroll manager?
32 A. That did not come within my jurisdiction, no. I was
33 responsible for paying people correctly. I was not at the
34 store, so that was for the Store Manager.
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It seems to me that you ought to put the kind
37 of incidents of things going wrong which you have in mind,
38 and just ask Mrs. Pearce whether that would have come to
39 her attention on reports.
40
41 MR. MORRIS: What came to your attention about people failing to
42 keep a proper record of hours worked? You said you have a
43 good memory of this time that you spent with McDonald's.
44 How often did that come up, then?
45 A. Very infrequently.
46
47 Q. It happened then, did it, that people were not keeping a
48 proper record of hours?
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you remember it happening?
51 A. No, because records were kept -- if somebody was
52 incorrectly paid, then it was put right on the next
53 payroll. It was never McDonald's intention to underpay
54 anybody. If they worked their hours, they were paid for
55 it.
56
57 MR. MORRIS: How do you know what happened at store level?
58 A. Because, ultimately, the crew member, if they were
59 short, as in something had been missed off their payslip,
60 they would look at the payslip and say, "Whoops, perhaps an
