Day 209 - 25 Jan 96 - Page 14
1
2 Q. OK. There is a later reference to that as well in the
3 later notes which I served which we will come to later on.
4 "I once witnessed a manager who randomly clocked time", is
5 that ---
6 A. Yes, "from people's" -----
7
8 Q. -- "from people's clock card reports just to reduce labour,
9 although I think this was a rare incident".
10 A. Well, I have only ever been aware of that once when I
11 was in the store on a close with another Manager.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just pause a moment. Yes. You were only
14 aware of it once when you were in the store on a close with
15 another Manager?
16 A. Yes.
17
18 Q. Then I interrupted you.
19 A. I am trying to remember the time of that; I think it
20 was about 1990, some time in 1990, and -- oh, no, 91 it
21 must have been. I was a Floor Manager, sorry -- and it was
22 on the night and this chap was also a Floor Manager I think
23 at the time, and he was using somebody else's code because
24 he needed somebody else's code to shut the system down and
25 he was laughing about it.
26
27 MR. MORRIS: I am reading from the statement again: "Breaks,
28 employees' rights to a break were often abused especially
29 during periods of high volume, i.e. Saturdays, school
30 holidays, summer. Employees were often coerced by Managers
31 to take a short break as to take a long break would be seen
32 as to affect the other employees' chances of getting a
33 break".
34 A. That was the biggest pressure you put on people, was
35 you are letting the team down if you have too long a
36 break. You know, you are -- people on the front, if they
37 want a drinks break, you know, if they have a drinks break,
38 something has to take over their till, there is no-one else
39 to take over their till, I will just have to wait. Stuff
40 like that.
41
42 You know, there were other ways of coercing people to go on
43 their breaks, you know, because there were certain stations
44 that people did not want to go on and you would know that.
45 Some people might not like to do fries because fries on a
46 Saturday is very, very difficult. You could threaten to
47 put them on fries. Some people always liked to go in the
48 back; some people always liked to go on the front. You
49 know, you could, if you were writing the floor plan, you
50 could always just move them around to somewhere they did
51 not want to go. The lobby, the customer area, that was
52 normally, you know, if somebody did not do as you asked,
53 then next week, perhaps, you might put them on lobby. You
54 would not show them any favours. You could make their life
55 quite, you know, difficult if they did not do what you
56 said.
57
58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What did you mean when you said, as I thought
59 you said, about coercing people to go on their breaks?
60 A. Yes, well, to go on their breaks early?
