Day 209 - 25 Jan 96 - Page 11


     
     1        A.  Sorry, can I come in there again?  Just in some of the
     2        statements said previously it said that the schedules were
     3        checked, but the schedules were only ever checked comparing
     4        them to a matrix to see how many people you had on, but
     5        there was never a check to see if someone was being given
     6        biased hours, if someone was being picked on.  There was no
     7        system -- the schedules were never checked for that.
     8
     9        People's hours, the total hours they worked in a week, were
    10        never written down at the side of it.  I am not sure if
    11        they were meant to be, but they were never written down.
    12        So nobody ever had regular hours.  So, somebody one week
    13        could have 40 hours and next week they could have 16 hours,
    14        you know, or even less.  I know a chap who had two four
    15        hour shifts in a week and he was full-time.  I mean, there
    16        was no check for that.  But the Manager perhaps above the
    17        person who was doing the schedule, the Store Manager, would
    18        check that the schedule coincided with the matrix, so that
    19        all the numbers added up, but he did not check individual
    20        crew to see if there was any anything going on that, you
    21        know, might show that people are being harassed.
    22
    23   Q.   That is what you meant by inconsistencies, is it that, in
    24        that?
    25        A.  Yes.  These inconsistencies, some people always getting
    26        a Saturday night close, you know, which is probably the
    27        most unpopular shift; you know, they keep getting them, and
    28        they complain about them.  But, you know, who are they
    29        going to complain to?
    30
    31   Q.   I will go on over the page:  "Overtime.  As a crew member
    32        myself, approximately 1991, during summer vacations from
    33        college, I consistently worked well over 45 hours every
    34        week during our busy periods, eg, July, August, tourist
    35        season.  This was the case for other employees.  As a
    36        Manager, I was aware that many employees consistently
    37        worked 45 hours a week every week for several weeks in a
    38        row and did not receive any overtime.  The evening and
    39        night shift breaks of pay, an extra 25 pence and 50 pence
    40        respectively (always were considered to be
    41        compensation/incentives for working unsocial hours) and, to
    42        my knowledge, in five years' employment at McDonald's there
    43        was never any suggestion that this money in some way
    44        covered overtime.  I was told as a crew member by a Manager
    45        that overtime was not paid because the schedule was done
    46        over eight days, not seven."
    47        A.  Can I explain what I meant by that?  It is -- when I
    48        was a crew member, I asked why people did not get overtime,
    49        and it was explained to me that the schedule was done on a
    50        eight day basis which meant you did six days working and 
    51        two days off.  So it added up to eight days, so in a one 
    52        week period you might do 40 hours one week but the next 
    53        week you might have three days off, so you might not do 40
    54        hours.
    55
    56        So, therefore, they did not have to pay you overtime,
    57        because if you did do over 40 or 39 hours one week, you
    58        were not going to do it the next week and that was the
    59        justification for not paying overtime, even though we were
    60        all fully aware that, you know, we all did, you know, a

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