Day 151 - 10 Jul 95 - Page 38
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
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4 MR. MORRIS: I want to collect my thoughts. You said in your
5 evidence-in-chief that there would be uproar (which was
6 your word) if people had their hours dictated, if
7 strong-minded employees had their hours dictated to them,
8 in terms of being asked to work. What do you mean by that,
9 sorry?
10 A. I believe the context was a supposition to refute the
11 allegation that people were forced to work hours either
12 more or less than they were scheduled to, if my memory
13 serves me correctly, to suggest that people who do work for
14 us are intelligent individuals who would not necessarily
15 take kindly -- and I think that is the context in which
16 I may well have used "uproar" or whatever to describe that.
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18 Q. You have said, about keeping crew on after scheduled hours,
19 you do not want to compel someone; individuals would not do
20 it; and then, soon after that, about using punishments,
21 putting people on particularly dirty tasks or something as
22 a punishment for not agreeing with the scheduling time, or
23 something like times, whatever, that if that happened no
24 one would work at McDonald's.
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26 I put it to you Mr. Stanton that the problem you have at
27 McDonald's is, as you say, if you have strong-minded
28 employees. So what you do at McDonald's is, you
29 deliberately employ young people, inexperienced people; you
30 force them into a routine where they are expected to comply
31 with management rulings, where they have no rights; and
32 that is how you manage to get people to work in the
33 conditions at McDonald's stores. What do you say to all
34 that?
35 A. I refute that wholeheartedly. To suggest that we have
36 some sort of mind hold over individuals and there is some
37 form of brainwashing going on to make people stay behind
38 after hours, to use some form of project as a form of
39 punishment, that those people stay on indiscriminately,
40 based on those accusations, I suggest that is a very poor
41 outsider's view of the business and does a lot of
42 disservice to the people who work within it.
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44 Q. You said that students would ask to do double shifts; for
45 example, they would say, "I need the extra money", but that
46 was not something you would encourage, because they would
47 get tired half the way through their second shift?
48 A. That is something I did not encourage.
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50 Q. Did not encourage. But that is a recognition, is it not,
51 that people are desperate for money ---
52 A. It is perhaps even -----
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54 Q. -- and are prepared to work unsocial hours and lengths of
55 time because they are desperate for money?
56 A. Not at all. Why is it so wrong for someone to have
57 pride in their employment, pride for working for a
58 company? If that is a crime, then I will stand accused and
59 guilty. But the fact that I have people working in it and
60 we, as a company, have individuals who enjoy the work,
