Day 124 - 10 May 95 - Page 24


     
     1        you have been guilty of any disreputable behaviour which
     2        might ---
     3        A.  Absolutely.
     4
     5   Q.   -- come out and, since you were an employee of McDonald's,
     6        reflect poorly on the Company in some people's eyes?
     7        A.  Correct.
     8
     9   Q.   "Is there anything the Company ought to know about
    10        you"  ---
    11        A.  Absolutely.
    12
    13   Q.   -- "which you really ought to tell us", that sort of thing?
    14        A.  Absolutely.
    15
    16   Q.   Just about everyone who has been interviewed is familiar
    17        with that kind of question.
    18        A.  Right.  In moving in to a position of responsibility,
    19        the Company wanted to know that they were not promoting
    20        someone that had engaged in scandalous activity that was
    21        going to not only embarrass the -- later embarrass the
    22        individual but embarrass the Company.
    23
    24   Q.   Could I ask you:  To what extent, if at all, at the time we
    25        are talking about, 20 years or so ago now, polygraph tests
    26        were used by employers generally?
    27        A.  It is pretty common.
    28
    29   Q.   Forget employment where security is important, government
    30        agencies or things of that kind, which might have been a
    31        rather different category, but in the context of the normal
    32        employer/employee relationship?
    33        A.  My recollection, my Lord, was that it was pretty
    34        common, not only in our industry, but in general.  It was
    35        fairly inexpensive to do.  Usually, firms or companies
    36        would contract with an outside vendor to conduct the test,
    37        and for a nominal fee per person, you know, you would
    38        receive a little, you know, assurance, additional
    39        assurance, that you were employing people that were of good
    40        character.
    41
    42   MS. STEEL:   You would expect or hope for negative answers to
    43        those questions?  You would hope that someone was not going
    44        to reel off a whole load of offences that they had
    45        committed?
    46        A.  We were hoping that our judgment on the individuals
    47        that were taking the test were good.  I would say, by and
    48        large, most of the people that we were moving into
    49        management, most of them passed the test with flying
    50        colours.  Some passed with some grey areas, but it was not 
    51        significant enough for us to change our mind. 
    52 
    53        In the case of employees that we suspected of wrong-doing,
    54        going into those tests, we suspected to find something.  If
    55        we had, for instance, experienced the loss of products in
    56        our restaurant or had money missing from the till, we would
    57        try to, as best we could, isolate those occurrences, try to
    58        narrow down the field to individuals that we thought might
    59        have committed those acts and then asked them to take a
    60        polygraph test.

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