Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 49
1
2 So, this visit by a wage inspector, who we have only heard
3 hearsay testimony about from a McDonald's employee --
4 actually, I have not looked at her evidence, but I seem to
5 remember that she did not know what was going on in stores
6 herself, let alone the wages inspector. I will have to
7 check that, if I get a chance, tonight. If she did not
8 know what was going on at store level, then it would have
9 been difficult to see how a wages inspector would.
10
11 He said that Parliament at the time would have viewed these
12 matters very seriously and would have expected them to have
13 been complied with, or offences would be punishable by fine
14 or imprisonment. That was page 53, line 37.
15
16 He then says, at the bottom of page 53: "In the early to
17 mid '80s, the flexing of the employment contract, if you go
18 back 10 years, was not really so well developed."
19
20 This is an important point, I think, that McDonald's have
21 pioneered certain practices -- as we have heard on other
22 issues as well -- they have pioneered certain practices in
23 employment, in terms of being such a large company with
24 such a kind of industrial system and, yet, to be so
25 effectively anti-union in terms of, you know, a number of
26 things -- I don't know, maybe their fortnightly working is
27 catching on, I don't know -- but, certainly, the flexible
28 employment contract which has now become a feature of much
29 of industry, and they are one of the companies that have
30 pioneered that way of working and their influence -----
31
32 MR JUSTICE BELL: Are you saying that is a good thing or a bad
33 thing?
34
35 MR. MORRIS: No -- it is a bad thing.
36
37 MR. JUSTICE BELL: In what way? I can see, if it means that
38 you may have some hours one week and none the next, and so
39 on, but there are an awful lot of people working flexible
40 hours who would be able to work no others, and are
41 extremely grateful to be able to shift their workload
42 around the clock.
43
44 MR. MORRIS: Yes. People, if they have an option to have
45 flexi-time or something, that is one thing; that would
46 expand workers' right. But if it is compulsory ------
47
48 MR JUSTICE BELL: You did not say that. You just said
49 "pioneering flexible working". I would have thought,
50 generally speaking, that is a good thing to have come in,
51 is it not? Whether it can be said that McDonald's are
52 responsible for it, or just people like the Civil Service
53 have suddenly realised that it is a great help to their
54 employees or some of them -----
55
56 MR. MORRIS: I think that it is different, that if people in
57 the Civil Service did not know from one week to the other
58 how many hours they were going to get -----
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I know. I said, apart from doubt about
