Day 209 - 25 Jan 96 - Page 69


     
     1        A.  I have to say, I did it, you know, on shifts myself.
     2        On a Saturday, if I was running the front, I would try and
     3        get as many of the breaks out of the way before 12 o'clock,
     4        before the busy time came.  So if they started at 10.00 and
     5        they were going to have a 45 minute break, you needed to
     6        get them off quickly so they would be back before the
     7        people who started at 11.00 -- before the people who
     8        started at 11.00 could go on their breaks.  Do you see what
     9        I mean?  So, the people who start at 10.00, if you send
    10        them straightaway, they could be back by 11.00 and,
    11        therefore, if they were back by 11.00 you could send the
    12        people who came on at 11.00 on their breaks and you could
    13        have -- not all of them, but, you know, perhaps half of
    14        them out of the way before 12 o'clock, before the rush
    15        between 12.00 and 2.30, you know.  You would normally get a
    16        quiet period of, say, 10 or 15 minutes between 2.30 and
    17        3.00, and then it would all start over again.  It would all
    18        just start building up again.
    19
    20   Q.   Just a final point on breaks, it has been said by witnesses
    21        for McDonald's that when people's breaks were not the full
    22        45 minutes, it was always through their own choice; do you
    23        have any comment on that?
    24        A.  Some of them used to take shorter breaks.  So, you
    25        know, it was just, it was good for us.  If you were the
    26        Manager, you would think, "Great, they want to take a
    27        shorter break".  Sometimes it would be -- you could ask
    28        them -- you could say:  "Go upstairs, that is it, fair
    29        enough, go on your break, but if I flash the lights you
    30        will have to come down".  You used to go round -- if it got
    31        busy, you would run round the back and flash the upstairs
    32        lights in the crew room and they would be expected to come
    33        back down.  That was the usual -- that is what most people
    34        did.  You know, if you sent someone on their break and it
    35        was too busy, it suddenly got busy, you get them back down
    36        again, you know, because if the Supervisor came in and saw
    37        you did not have enough crew and you said, you know:  "He
    38        is upstairs on his break", he would not say:  "Ah, that is
    39        all right then".  He would asked you why you had not got
    40        him downstairs working again.
    41
    42   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Just pause a moment.  Yes.
    43
    44   MS. STEEL:   If you turn to page 195 under "Sean Richards,
    45        Second Assistant", it says, "should change his attitude
    46        towards crew.  Can use hours scheduled to advantage over
    47        crew".  Would you agree with that complaint or disagree?
    48        A.  I would agree with it, just because he used to, he was
    49         -- some people feared him quite a bit, you know, and he
    50        had the threat, because he was doing the schedule, he had 
    51        the threat of giving you whatever hours he fancied giving 
    52        you, and people knew that there was no come back on him. 
    53        So, you know, they normally did what he asked.  If he asked
    54        them to stay on, they would -- you know, if you did not
    55        stay on he probably would not have done anything, I do not
    56        know, but the threat was implied there, that if you do not
    57        stay on -- he was quite an aggressive chap and I think he
    58        just used to bully them into it, really, just staying on
    59        some people.
    60

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