Day 199 - 11 Dec 95 - Page 08
1 knew they were not keen on working in. I.e. if someone was
2 not keen on working on the till, you would put them on the
3 till; if they were not that good on the grill, you would
4 make sure they went on the grill -- so it is not actually
5 doing toilet duty all the time.
6
7 Q. That was part of it?
8 A. Well, I mean, if you were on the lobby, then cleaning
9 the toilet was part of your job, to make sure that the
10 toilets are kept lean.
11
12 Q. "He/she would be shouted at in front of the crew and
13 humiliated publicly. Invariably, if a crew member answered
14 back in these circumstances, he/she was sent home
15 immediately and were obviously not paid for the hours that
16 were not worked. Some employees who were sent home in this
17 way just did not come back, although some did. In my
18 experience, very few crew members were actually sacked in
19 accordance with the proper disciplinary procedures, which
20 were lengthy and which provided for several stages of
21 discipline before sacking. Most employees just got too fed
22 up with the treatment they were getting and left.
23
24 I wish to stress that the training theory of McDonald's
25 management was actually very good. It was a useful
26 training in itself. However, as I have stated above, there
27 was a vast difference between the theory and the practice."
28
29 Do you just want to say what the reason for that was?
30
31 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, we have had quite a lot of this already.
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, I think, unless I have missed something,
34 Mr. Cranna has really answered that question earlier when
35 you asked him something about it.
36
37 MS. STEEL: Yes, OK. "I left McDonald's because I just could
38 not take it any more. It got to the stage where I just
39 could not take the job seriously. In order to succeed, one
40 had to 'live McDonald's' and be prepared to devote yourself
41 to nothing else. This, combined with the pressure, hours
42 and money made me feel that it was just not worth it.
43 McDonald's had ridiculous expectations of their staff for
44 the amount of money that they actually earned."
45
46 That is signed by you and dated 27th July 1993. Do you
47 stand by what was written in that statement as a true
48 record of your experiences?
49 A. Yes.
50
51 MR. MORRIS: Do you remember a Senior Supervisor called Rose
52 French?
53 A. I do vaguely, yes.
54
55 Q. She gave evidence earlier on in this case. There was one
56 thing which she said which was something about there were
57 occasional problems due to short staffing, is what she
58 remembered at the store. Do you know anything about that?
59 A. It is inevitable that if you are -- I think if you are
60 trying to run sort of a very tight ship and keep staffing
