Day 132 - 07 Jun 95 - Page 17


     
     1        a space to put in the local Environmental Health Department
     2        who administer the Health & Safety at Work Act. If anybody
     3        does feel aggrieved under Health & Safety, they are
     4        perfectly at liberty to pick up the telephone and talk to
     5        the Enforcement Officer.  There is no problem.
     6
     7   Q.   So does McDonald's encourage its crew members to contact
     8        the Environmental Health Department of its local authority
     9        any time in which they consider the management are not
    10        acting effectively or speedily to prevent safety lapses?
    11        A.  It is not necessary.  McDonald's have a very effective
    12        system for looking at hazards and dealing with it.  Why
    13        would they want to perpetuate a hazard?  Why would any
    14        manager in his right mind want to insist on somebody doing
    15        an unsafe job?  It is a nonsense.  That is not how industry
    16        works and that is not how industry is effective or
    17        efficient.
    18
    19   Q.   So your presumption is that industry works efficiently for
    20        the benefit of the safety of employees?
    21
    22   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No.  He is saying McDonald's do, and it is a
    23        matter you can argue on the whole of the evidence which
    24        will include such evidence as you have call in due course,
    25        but you have asked Mr. Purslow for his views as an expert
    26        and he has, for better or worse, given it to you.
    27
    28   MR. MORRIS:  But whether or not everything in the garden is rosy
    29        at McDonald's, would you recognise it would be to the
    30        benefit of employees to have their own independent power or
    31        system such as their own elected representative with that
    32        power to take action themselves over safety issues?
    33        A.  Not necessarily, no.
    34
    35   Q.   Not necessarily?
    36        A.  Not necessarily.  I can conceive instances whereby an
    37        individual may say:  "This is a dangerous job".  If you are
    38        talking about, I do not know, construction industries or
    39        one or two industries like that where, let us be -- it is
    40        obvious that problems exist, one could understand that that
    41        might be of benefit, but I cannot see in the totality of
    42        industry with any well conducted, efficient industry that
    43        it is necessary.  It is not in the interests of the company
    44        to expose workers to risk; it would be a nonsense.
    45
    46   Q.   So you claimed concern over employee safety generally at
    47        McDonald's or in industry does not extend to advising
    48        employers they should empower their employees to have their
    49        own independent sanctions over management?
    50        A.  No, because I do not think it is necessary. 
    51 
    52   Q.   Because you basically are pro management, pro industry, and 
    53        that is exactly why you are a McDonald's consultant?
    54        A.  I am an Environmental Health Officer.  I have spent all
    55        my working career trying to protect people.  I feel that
    56        I can do it very effectively in industry by instructing and
    57        helping companies to form, to make a safe workplace.  If
    58        they make a safe workplace, they also end up by making more
    59        profit.  I see no problem with that.  I work within
    60        companies and my advice is taken on these matters.  In

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