Day 140 - 22 Jun 95 - Page 41
1
2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Quite frankly, it seems to me that it can
3 read either. I just do not know which, but just reading
4 that alone -----
5
6 MS. STEEL: I suggest to you that that is what the survey was
7 of, what the wage rates were in May. It was mailed out to
8 participating restaurants in June 1990 and returned in
9 July?
10 A. I would suggest you look at the second paragraph
11 dealing with the decision to conduct such a survey.
12 I think that relates to the May in the first paragraph
13 but -----
14
15 MR. MORRIS: Which paragraph?
16
17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you have a basis for suggesting that the
18 difference would have been considerable between the two
19 dates? I mean -----
20
21 MS. STEEL: Yes. There is a basis for that, because by May 1990
22 all these stores and the Company had come under
23 considerable pressure over the wage rates, had they not,
24 which was precisely why you were down there?
25 A. No, that is not correct.
26
27 Q. By that time, they may well have changed their wage rates.
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Are you suggesting that they had? That is
30 what I need to know, if you say something may have
31 happened.
32
33 MS. STEEL: Because we have not got their survey,
34 mysteriously -----
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: All I am asking is if you have a basis for
37 it. Put it anyway, that they were changed.
38
39 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord -----
40
41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, Mr. Rampton. Every time I make -- not
42 every time, I am sorry, but four out of five times, when
43 I start to say something, you want your six pennyworth
44 halfway through.
45
46 MR. RAMPTON: I was going to make a different point. I will
47 make it later.
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I was going to say is this, there is a
50 difference in what you put, that someone may have done
51 something significant and actually has done it. So make it
52 clear that you are not just suggesting that something is
53 capable of a sinister interpretation, but that you are
54 actually putting that such and such happened. If you get
55 an answer you like, that is the end of it. If you get an
56 answer you do not like, then put your ammunition, if you
57 have it.
58
59 MS. STEEL: (To the witness) I suggest to you that the wage
60 rates had changed and had decreased their differential
