Day 310 - 04 Dec 96 - Page 23


     
     1        criticism here is how many people you have on your
     2        payroll.  It is tight scheduling to avoid paying any more
     3        than you absolutely have to, which so easily leads to these
     4        crises.
     5
     6   MR. RAMPTON:   It can do.  In fact, if one looks at the detail,
     7        which the Defendants have not done, of Bath and Heathrow --
     8        which one can do on the documents and which we have done
     9        and they are analysed in very fine detail -- one finds that
    10        it simply is not so.  That is the great benefit of those
    11        three restaurants having been looked at in such detail.
    12        One cannot do quite the same exercise for Colchester
    13        because the payroll documents do not exist.
    14
    15        But -- and I do emphasise this point quite strongly -- Bath
    16        and Heathrow were not chosen by McDonald's as restaurants
    17        and the periods which have been looked at were not chosen
    18        by McDonald's.  They are random dips into the life of a
    19        restaurant - the rates of pay, the length of the hours, the
    20        number of shifts and so on and so forth; breaks and
    21        everything.  What that exercise demonstrates is that the
    22        allegations which are based, it now appears, on conjecture
    23        rather than fact simply do not hold up.
    24
    25   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.  I must look at those more closely than
    26        I have done so far.
    27
    28   MR. RAMPTON:   I do urge your Lordship to do that.  They are, we
    29        would submit, very enlightening on all aspects of the
    30        things that the Defendants have been alleging.
    31
    32   MR. MORRIS:   Can I just say, Mr. Rampton said that we have not
    33        analysed all those documents.  We did go through them in
    34        evidence to some extent.  Also, we just have not had the
    35        time to.
    36
    37   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   I do not suppose you have.
    38
    39   MR. MORRIS:   Certainly, we would do if we had the time.
    40
    41   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I have made no bones about the fact that I
    42        have not yet, but I will do in due course.  I am going to
    43        go through the evidence myself on those three restaurants,
    44        because they are important to your joint case, and
    45        Mr. Rampton says if you do take some care with them they
    46        have the reverse effect.  So, I have to get to the bottom
    47        of it one way or the other.
    48
    49   MR. RAMPTON:   They do.  I raised that, because your Lordship
    50        asked me a general question about what is on page 42. 
    51        Those documents do actually answer that.  Colchester, it is 
    52        accepted, at any rate for a time, did have problems with 
    53        recruitment.  Hence, it had problems of understaffing.
    54        There was a time at Heathrow when recruitment was something
    55        of a problem.
    56
    57        If one is looking at the question in relation to Bath and
    58        Heathrow - was the restaurant habitually understaffed, were
    59        people, in consequence of that, having to work longer hours
    60        than they should have done?  All the questions which flow

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