Day 150 - 07 Jul 95 - Page 37


     
     1        concerned and as far as McDonald's themselves were
     2        concerned?
     3        A.  As I mentioned earlier on, part of my, the audit, if
     4        you like, that I had to carry out on an ongoing basis, part
     5        of that personnel audit, so to speak, was to check clock
     6        cards, to ensure that people were not working past those
     7        permitted hours.
     8
     9   Q.   While we are on clock cards, is it right that there is a
    10        computer nowadays?
    11        A.  Yes.  At the time that I was Supervisor it was a manual
    12        time clock system; whereas now it is all computerised and
    13        dealt with centrally, so to speak.
    14
    15   Q.   I do not know whether you know or not, but what does this
    16        computer do?  What is it doing?  What is its purpose in
    17        relation to under 18s?
    18        A.  Well, basically, it will flag up and prevent you, so to
    19        speak, from scheduling first of all anybody past the
    20        10 o'clock and 12 o'clock, or it would have done at the
    21        time, because you would have to enter it centrally into the
    22        person's details on this in-store processor, which would
    23        then obviously reflect their date of birth, which would be
    24        linked up to the scheduling side of the package, and would
    25        prevent you.  It would not be possible to put someone's
    26        name down for a shift that they could not work, both in
    27        terms of legal requirement and, secondly, in terms of the
    28        hours they wanted to work, because they would only say,
    29        "I am only available Saturday".  So if you try to schedule
    30        it on a Sunday it would throw it out of the system as a
    31        bug, so to speak.
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  When did that come in?
    34        A.  I think we have had that system probably about four
    35        years now; four or five years.
    36
    37   Q.   So it would throw out if they were under a certain age and
    38        the hours entered went past a permitted time, and it would
    39        throw out if they were scheduled on days for which they
    40        were down and not to work on, and so on?
    41        A.  Yes.
    42
    43   MR. ATKINSON:   Do you know the precise period that the
    44        computers have been in operation?
    45        A.  No, I do not know.  I am only hazarding a guess, I am
    46        afraid, at five years.
    47
    48   Q.   When you were Area Supervisor at Colchester, was the
    49        practice of under 18s working illegal hours going on?
    50        A.  No. 
    51 
    52   Q.   Was the practice of clocking young people out at -- I say 
    53        "the practice" but a possible practice -- of clocking
    54        young people out at the proper time and then paying them a
    55        bonus to cover the extra hours, was that going on?
    56        A.  It was not.
    57
    58   Q.   Does it happen now in your experience?
    59        A.  No.
    60

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