Day 181 - 01 Nov 95 - Page 27
1 industry of seasonality, and it does mean that at certain
2 periods of the year part-time employees who thought they
3 were there for, say, a four day or three day perhaps 20
4 hours week, they might then be asked and persuaded to do
5 significantly more over, say, Christmas. Now, for them,
6 that is, effectively, more than they wanted. It is,
7 effectively, part-time, and there are companies, there are
8 employers, in this industry who provide a premium incentive
9 to even part-time staff to encourage them to work those
10 additional hours.
11
12 So, you know, that is why I feel that the
13 part-time/full-time question is -- it needs a condition
14 about the industry built into it really; it is just
15 I thought I should say that.
16
17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. I think, Mr. Rampton, when you speak
18 about overtime you are using it in the sense everyone in
19 this case has used it so far which is more than 30 hours,
20 over 39 hours?
21 A. 39.
22
23 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is right, is it not? That is the sense?
24
25 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, indeed, it is. My Lord, I said, I think,
26 when I broached this topic that I entirely accept there may
27 be occasions when part-timers actually do more than 39
28 hours in busy periods. I did not suggest that it was an
29 invariable rule that it was only full-timers.
30
31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. I think all Mr. Pearson is explaining
32 his hesitation with agreeing with your, when he understood
33 it, common sense suggestion. His hesitation was that by
34 his interpretation of overtime an awful lot of part-timers
35 work overtime, i.e. more than they normally work in a given
36 week.
37
38 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I am perfectly happy with that. I am
39 interested in people who work more than 39 hours a week, as
40 happens. (To the witness): Perhaps we can stick with
41 them, Mr. Pearson? According to these figures, it is a
42 small percentage of the workforce that works more than 39
43 hours a week, is it not?
44 A. Yes, it is.
45
46 Q. Yes.
47 A. And it is also interesting how much the number of
48 employees varies over the seasons. I mean, if you look at
49 the aggregate columns available in this data, you have
50 28,600 employees at the end of the quarter of which you
51 have asked about, yet in the quarter of 31st March you have
52 got over 2,000, about 2,000 more, and this obviously is a
53 seasonal factor.
54
55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We have no problem about that. If I might
56 suggest, stick to answering the questions which are put to
57 you. If you then have an elaboration on your answer, by
58 all means put it because I appreciate that a pure "yes" or
59 a pure "no" can be very misleading, but I would invite you
60 to try to resist going on to another point on something
