Day 132 - 07 Jun 95 - Page 43
1 mine.
2
3 Q. Or you could safely rubbish them as you have done in your
4 statement?
5 A. I do not believe I have rubbished them. I have been
6 asked to comment on their statements and I have done so.
7 I do not see it as "rubbishing".
8
9 Q. But as somebody who has, clearly, got a commitment to
10 working with McDonald's, should we then rubbish your
11 evidence?
12 A. I have a commitment to making all my companies safer
13 places. That is the end of story. You must make of my
14 evidence what you wish.
15
16 Q. You said that if employees have a grievance about safety
17 they should go to their local Environmental Health Officer?
18 A. Indeed, if they feel it has not been responded to
19 properly.
20
21 Q. Do you know that McDonald's has a provision in their Crew
22 Handbook which every crew member is expected to read, that
23 -- I do not want to get it wrong -- going to an outside
24 organisation to tell of conditions, in-store conditions, is
25 a sackable offence?
26 A. I do not see an Environmental Health department as an
27 outside organisation. I am sorry. I do not know what they
28 mean by that and I have not seen the document before.
29
30 Q. It is hardly an inside organisation, is it?
31 A. No, it is not, but I would not regard it as a sackable
32 offence. You would have to ask where on the Environmental
33 Health letter that we saw, where the EHO said that several
34 members had complained to him that they had been burned,
35 you would have to ask whether they have been sacked for
36 reporting that; I see no evidence to say they have been.
37
38 Q. The point is that it would take a lot of courage for any
39 McDonald's workers to report about in-store conditions to
40 an outside organisation knowing that it is a sackable
41 offence at McDonald's, would it not?
42 A. If they cared to phone the Environmental Health
43 Department and say they would prefer that their name was
44 not revealed, an Environmental Health Officer would not do
45 so. The whole point is that McDonald's internal system
46 should take care of such complaints themselves and any
47 responsible company tries to structure themselves so to do.
48
49 Q. When you have talked to McDonald's employees which,
50 I presume, you have from time to time?
51 A. Yes.
52
53 Q. I will ask that question in a different way: When you have
54 talked to employees, that would be part of a specific job
55 that you were doing, would it, you would be asked to go and
56 speak to someone or what?
57 A. I would speak to employees when I have been walking
58 around a store, when I have been looking at particular
59 tasks, specifically when we have been doing risk assessment
60 exercises and so on, which I include as part of their
