Day 303 - 19 Nov 96 - Page 36
1 crew working hours are not being paid, that if there were
2 complaints, they would check the clock cards and pay up.
3 It did not happen, she said, not that often. That was on
4 page 46. Although it does happen from time to time, it is
5 up to crew. That is on page 46 as well. So the
6 recognition that it does happen.
7
8 She said that the unsafe wheeling -- well, what we would
9 call unsafe, the wheeling of food up that slope we saw in
10 the film was standard practice. That is page 31.
11
12 She said, on page 34, I think it was the fast working, that
13 Croydon looked faster but it was "nothing different from
14 the Strand". She said that the staff "do feel hot and
15 pressurised". That was page 36, lines 1 to 11. There were
16 problems with observation checklists which are, of course,
17 the basis of performance review rises. She recognised
18 there had been problems, on page 38.
19
20 On page 45 she said: We acted on complaints. I did a
21 backlog. So here is a recognition of something we heard
22 from another store about backlogs building up, either
23 because, we would say, either because they are very low
24 priority or because it is a deliberate way of keeping wage
25 costs as low as possible.
26
27 There were many things that she did say. I think her
28 evidence is particularly helpful because we have a graphic
29 representation of the store and the workings, so I think if
30 it will be good to look at her evidence in particular, her
31 testimony.
32
33 She says - not a direct quote - but it was normal to shout
34 at someone who took an unofficial drinks break, because in
35 the film I think she said something like you had better be
36 sorry or something. And that was on page 42, I think.
37
38 She remembered the Manager resigning. I think that was
39 something that our researcher witness said, Miss Tobin.
40 One of the key managers had in fact resigned after working
41 extremely long hours, that we had said he had been working
42 extremely long hours.
43
44 She said they did get complaints about undercooked burgers,
45 "complaints about undercooked burgers from time to time",
46 and they were just replaced, no incident report form was
47 filled out. That is page 49, lines 55 onwards. Again what
48 we would expect from the testimony overall in this case and
49 it is refreshing to hear her evidence. I think one of the
50 reasons the character of her evidence was different from
51 other McDonald's witnesses is because, of course, the film
52 was there for everyone to see.
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Had she not gone off to be a franchisee?
55
56 MR. MORRIS: Yes. Also, I suppose, she was in some ways a
57 little bit not so much under the -- no, I would not say
58 that. She still is in McDonald's system but I think faced
59 with the evidence on the screen, there really was not much
60 else she could do except to try to answer the questions in
