Day 125 - 12 May 95 - Page 18
1 Q. Have you ever done that at McDonald's? Have people have a
2 scheduled time to start, turned up on time but be told,
3 "You cannot start yet", and not have them clock on until
4 they could start? Has that ever been a McDonald's
5 practice?
6 A. That has not been a practice. Has that occurred? Yes,
7 that has occurred. There have been, you know, cases like
8 that that have occurred. You asked me the day before
9 yesterday about cases where as a supervisor or store
10 manager what were some of the things that are covered. In
11 informal conversations with employees there were a couple
12 of situations where a particular assistant manager did
13 that, and I sat him down and said: "This is not the way we
14 operate at McDonald's. This is not the right thing to do,
15 the fair thing to do". But those are isolated situations.
16 It is not a practice.
17
18 MS. STEEL: So you think it would be unacceptable and unfair
19 practice for the employee if that was happening to them?
20 A. I think it would be. I do not think we would wind up
21 having the complement of people we would want to have at
22 our restaurant if we made that a practice. That is just a
23 fact of business. I do not think any employer would be
24 able to maintain the staff, necessary staff to run his or
25 her business if, in fact, on a regular basis people were
26 scheduled in and they were asked to wait an hour or two
27 hours before they were punched in. They just would
28 not -- they would be out of business rather quickly,
29 I would think.
30
31 Q. What does it mean where it says that employers are
32 prohibited from working employees off the clock"?
33 A. What does it mean?
34
35 Q. Is that where they are working but they are not clocked in?
36 A. That is what it means.
37
38 Q. In those circumstances, either they were not getting paid
39 at all, or they were being paid a bonus, or something like
40 that?
41 A. That is prohibited.
42
43 Q. You would consider that totally unacceptable?
44 A. Totally unacceptable. Again, I do not think you would
45 have that. Any employee that would be subjected to that, I
46 do not think would be a employee very long. They would not
47 want to be employed by -----
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you tell me when the Fair Labour
50 Standards Act was passed, and whether you know -- and the
51 answer may be just that you do not know -- whether all
52 these provisions came in at the same time, or different
53 statutory provisions, which now amount to the Fair Labour
54 Standards Act?
55 A. Some of these, my Lord, were already on the books at
56 the time. I believe the Fair Labour Standards Act over
57 time has been amended, has been updated. Mr. Stein, when
58 he comes in as our expert in the area, would be able to let
59 you know when the Standards Act was updated. He could give
60 you the exact date, I am sure, or could get that
