Day 207 - 23 Jan 96 - Page 41
1 Q. Have you never seen any Managers, other Managers, putting
2 pressure on people to go home when it has gone quiet?
3 A. No. I have seen people ask people whether they would
4 like to go home, but never pressure.
5
6 Q. If they say no, they are threatened with a cut in hours, or
7 toilet duty, or something like that?
8 A. No, I have never seen that.
9
10 Q. Would it concern you if the crew did feel that they were
11 being pressurised into going home?
12 A. It would concern me if they felt pressurised.
13
14 Q. Would you expect the Company to do something about it if
15 they did air or express that concern?
16 A. If they did air that concern to the Company, I would
17 expect them to look into it yes.
18
19 Q. If you could turn to tab 10 in file 1, and if you go to
20 page 217. This is the rap session of 27th July
21 1993. "Hours and schedule. Current situation with respect
22 to allocation of shift and hours, are they fair?" The
23 answer is: "Main problem is pressurising people to go home,
24 to control labour, even though this leaves us short." Do
25 you remember this complaint being made at the time?
26 A. No.
27
28 Q. So, presumably, you do not remember any investigation or
29 action being taken?
30 A. No.
31
32 Q. Did you actually take any notice of anything that you read
33 in these rap sessions?
34 A. I would read through -- so far as I remember, I would
35 read through the rap sessions, and then the Store Manager
36 would formulate his action plan from there.
37
38 Q. The last question on the page is: "What could be done to
39 improve upon this situation?"; and the answer is: "Get the
40 number of people scheduled right." Do you remember any
41 change in the scheduling around that time?
42 A. Sorry, what was date again, please?
43
44 Q. I think it is 1993 -- 27th July 1993.
45 A. No.
46
47 Q. In actual fact, the first part that I referred to does not
48 actually say that it is getting people to go home when it
49 is quiet; it just says "to control labour, even though this
50 leaves us short".
51
52 It also says there that the average number of hours worked
53 per week was 40. So, unless they were all working 40 hours
54 a week, some would have been working more than that, would
55 they not, to get the average?
56 A. It is -- sorry, what report is this from?
57
58 Q. The rap session of July 1993.
59 A. Is that not an indication of the number of hours
60 worked? I do not know whether it is worked out
