Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 49


     
     1
     2        So, this visit by a wage inspector, who we have only heard
     3        hearsay testimony about from a McDonald's employee --
     4        actually, I have not looked at her evidence, but I seem to
     5        remember that she did not know what was going on in stores
     6        herself, let alone the wages inspector.  I will have to
     7        check that, if I get a chance, tonight.  If she did not
     8        know what was going on at store level, then it would have
     9        been difficult to see how a wages inspector would.
    10
    11        He said that Parliament at the time would have viewed these
    12        matters very seriously and would have expected them to have
    13        been complied with, or offences would be punishable by fine
    14        or imprisonment.  That was page 53, line 37.
    15
    16        He then says, at the bottom of page 53: "In the early to
    17        mid '80s, the flexing of the employment contract, if you go
    18        back 10 years, was not really so well developed."
    19
    20        This is an important point, I think, that McDonald's have
    21        pioneered certain practices -- as we have heard on other
    22        issues as well -- they have pioneered certain practices in
    23        employment, in terms of being such a large company with
    24        such a kind of industrial system and, yet, to be so
    25        effectively anti-union in terms of, you know, a number of
    26        things -- I don't know, maybe their fortnightly working is
    27        catching on, I don't know -- but, certainly, the flexible
    28        employment contract which has now become a feature of much
    29        of industry, and they are one of the companies that have
    30        pioneered that way of working and their influence -----
    31
    32   MR JUSTICE BELL:  Are you saying that is a good thing or a bad
    33        thing?
    34
    35   MR. MORRIS:   No -- it is a bad thing.
    36
    37   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   In what way?  I can see, if it means that
    38        you may have some hours one week and none the next, and so
    39        on, but there are an awful lot of people working flexible
    40        hours who would be able to work no others, and are
    41        extremely grateful to be able to shift their workload
    42        around the clock.
    43
    44   MR. MORRIS:   Yes.  People, if they have an option to have
    45        flexi-time or something, that is one thing; that would
    46        expand workers' right.  But if it is compulsory ------
    47
    48   MR JUSTICE BELL:  You did not say that.  You just said
    49        "pioneering flexible working".  I would have thought,
    50        generally speaking, that is a good thing to have come in,
    51        is it not?  Whether it can be said that McDonald's are
    52        responsible for it, or just people like the Civil Service
    53        have suddenly realised that it is a great help to their
    54        employees or some of them -----
    55
    56   MR. MORRIS:   I think that it is different, that if people in
    57        the Civil Service did not know from one week to the other
    58        how many hours they were going to get -----
    59
    60   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   I know.  I said, apart from doubt about

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