Day 123 - 09 May 95 - Page 56


     
     1   Q.   Yes, but 466 is a large number of violations, even if they
     2        were all only 10 minutes over the hour.  So, it seems that
     3        the Company has double standards when it comes to
     4        violations by crew members who face gross misconduct and
     5        summary dismissal in a large number of circumstances ---
     6        A.  Well -----
     7
     8   Q.   -- and a management, as you claimed before, who have higher
     9        standards, can, effectively, make hundreds of violations
    10        and still be there the following week, so how do you
    11        explain that?
    12        A.  Let me answer your question this way.  First, I think
    13        that is a gross mischaracterisation of what occurred.
    14        I stated earlier that we are not privy to all of the
    15        day-to-day dealings that go on in all of our restaurants.
    16        We try to be as informed as we can.  In that particular
    17        case we, obviously, did not have knowledge at the time of
    18        those violations, but once we were informed or once the
    19        franchisee was cited, we assembled a team of folks,
    20        whatever we needed to do, to address that situation so that
    21        the matter was handled.  I do not say that -- in saying
    22        that I certainly do not think there is a double standard.
    23
    24   Q.   If a crew member had 466 violations of -----
    25
    26   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, you may have a good point, but that
    27        cannot possibly be analogous to someone who is running
    28        maybe eight stores at a time and, for all I know, had
    29        something like 50, 500, crew members working for him.  I am
    30        not saying you are not making a good point, but you cannot
    31        compare it with a single crew member, can you?
    32
    33   THE WITNESS:  They had at least 500 employees and 30 some
    34        management people.
    35
    36   MR. MORRIS:  You said earlier on that you had a supervisory
    37        system which was set up in precisely to see, to find out,
    38        if these kind of violations of, say, child labour laws were
    39        going on; yet you said that it was the authorities that
    40        alerted you to this, so how can that be then?
    41        A.  Well, I think it is important that we all know the
    42        facts.  At the outset, I indicated to you I am not an
    43        expert on that, that I had certain recollections of the
    44        case, and I think that maybe it would be more appropriate
    45        to query Mr. Stein on specifics, if that is important and
    46        pertinent, my Lord.  But, as far as I am concerned,
    47        whenever we found out, whether we found out first or
    48        whether the authorities found out first, the matter was
    49        addressed.
    50 
    51        It very well may have happened that we found out and, in 
    52        the course of us finding out and taking action to address 
    53        that situation, the authorities, you know, also saw that
    54        there were violations and publicised them.  It was highly
    55        unusual that you would have that many violations, No. 1
    56        and, secondly, that it would occur in McDonald's.
    57
    58        I think the fact that it received the publicity that it did
    59        was that it happened with a McDonald's franchisee, and
    60        there were so many violations.  I mean that was -- I can

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