Day 118 - 01 May 95 - Page 27
1 attack on this is if McDonald's do it their way rather than
2 just paying basic rates and then if you go over 39 hours
3 paying time and a half, every so often you might expect
4 they will pay someone less than the minimum for that week
5 because they are doing it their own way. That is part of
6 what I understand you have been putting this morning. For
7 all I know in Kirsty Anne Pearson's case there was an
8 occasion where if you worked it out she had been underpaid
9 so McDonald's coughed up the £27 odd she was short. On the
10 other hand, they might just have thought why do not we pay
11 her £27 rather than lawyers £500, something of that kind.
12 It does not actually put the way we are working on the
13 line. All it puts is whether we paid beneath the minimum
14 on this occasion or not. But there we are. (To the
15 witness.) The fact is you do not know why the compromise
16 was reached in this particular case.
17 A. I do not know.
18
19 Q. You have no background?
20 A. None at all my Lord but just looking at the settlement,
21 it speaks volumes -- £29.
22
23 MR. MORRIS: In your company's alleged system maybe you could
24 say where on the pay slips or other company document is
25 this special provision for paying an additional bonus
26 equivalent to what the overtime rate might be for someone
27 who worked more than 13 hours in a week. Where does it
28 appear? Or is scrawled on by hand by a manager?
29 A. I am afraid I do not understand what you are asking.
30
31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, does it appear at all?
32 A. I am not sure what he is asking.
33
34 MR. MORRIS: If I can find a wage. Do you know where it would
35 appear in the company records when a manager has decided to
36 pay, if they do, some extra money because somebody worked
37 over 39 hours and did not reach the overtime rate they
38 should have been paid?
39
40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What is being put to you is the wages -- it
41 is sometime since I actually received one on an hourly
42 rate-- but you could very often work out you have so many
43 hours at X pounds an hour or X0 pence per hour and so many
44 at another rate. Then you could see what your gross pay
45 was before they started taking a large proportion of it
46 away for one reason or another. You see here you would
47 have a calculation, so many hours at X and so many hours at
48 Y. It would come to let us say £76.50 a week but the
49 manager would have worked out that person, if you say what
50 happens, should be 82 so he has to account for £5.50 on it,
51 or someone will think he is putting it in this his own
52 pocket. Do you see?
53 A. Yes.
54
55 Q. Was there any standard procedure to account for the £5.50
56 that employee might have been short that week but for the
57 manager's supplement?
58 A. No I do not know how they do it. They would deal with
59 Payroll Department on that. They would settle it. I do
60 not know how they do it.
