Day 175 - 18 Oct 95 - Page 34
1 because, depending on what the regime was, one rule was
2 enforceable one week, the next week it was not; and
3 probably -----
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Are you saying that that was intentional?
6 I mean, I can imagine that some managers were stricter than
7 others; some people are more laid back than others. Was
8 there more than that to it?
9 A. That was definitely the case, but there was more to it
10 as well, I think, because it did not -- a laid back manager
11 might be one of the ones who carried out one of the severe
12 decisions.
13
14 One of the things I think about, that comes to mind, is
15 someone who had worked there for a long time and was
16 considered to be one of the most able members of staff, at
17 the end of an evening asked another member of staff to
18 throw them some food out of the production bin. The shop
19 had been shut, so it was all going to be thrown away. The
20 rule was strictly that everything was thrown away and no
21 one was allowed to eat anything, but a lot of the time,
22 most of the time, that rule was relaxed. So when someone
23 has, quite openly in front of all the staff, asked someone
24 to chuck them a burger, the other guy threw him a burger,
25 started to eat it, and the Manager said, "What are you
26 doing", and he said, "I am just eating" whatever it was,
27 and he got sacked on the spot for it; whereas a week before
28 he would have done it and the Manager might have chucked
29 him a burger. In fact, that actual Manager often dished
30 the food out at the end of the evening.
31
32 Another thing, I got a written warning when I worked at
33 McDonald's for putting lettuce in a Quarter Pounder that
34 I was going to have in my break. The Manager actually made
35 a formal warning out of it.
36
37 MR. MORRIS: Can you explain why you would get a warning for
38 that?
39 A. The Manager's explanation for it was that if customers
40 knew that staff put lettuce in their Quarter Pounders, they
41 would want to, and that would destroy the sales of
42 Big Macs. But I just saw it as an example of pettiness.
43
44 During the time the discussions were taking place amongst
45 staff about unionising, it was decided by the management
46 that we would no longer to be able to have music playing
47 when we closed the store and cleaned up at the end of the
48 evening, even though we had always been allowed to do it
49 prior to that time. There was no real reason given, except
50 that it was distracting people, so the music was stopped;
51 and that was just seen as a chance to get at the staff.
52
53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just pause a moment. We will have five
54 minutes' break now.
55
56 (Short adjournment)
57
58 MR. MORRIS: In the bottom paragraph on that page, you talked
59 about staffing levels always kept at absolute minimum to
60 keep costs down and managers competing to see who would run
