Day 116 - 26 Apr 95 - Page 24
1 have concerned me sufficiently to make enquiries.
2
3 Q. Is there any way using this system in which the Store
4 Manager can massage his figures so as to disguise the
5 number of under age, let us say, under 18s, working at what
6 you would call excessive hours?
7 A. I would say it was impossible.
8
9 Q. Impossible?
10 A. Yes.
11
12 Q. When this system was first in place was it before or after
13 the law changed?
14 A. Before.
15
16 Q. So it was started at a time when the maximum you could work
17 in a week was 48 hours?
18 A. If you were under 18.
19
20 Q. I mean if you were under 18.
21 A. Yes.
22
23 Q. Do you remember in your time -- you started I think you
24 told us in October '82 -- any prosecutions either ---
25 A. October 1984.
26
27 Q. -- hang on, what?
28 A. October '84.
29
30 Q. Sorry,'84, did I say '82?
31 A. Yes.
32
33 Q. Apologies. 1984. In your time, 1984 to 1991, when you
34 went off sick, any prosecutions either under this
35 provision, that is to say, under 18s working more than 48
36 hours a week, or under the provisions which prohibited
37 employment of people younger than school leaving age, do
38 you remember any prosecutions during that period?
39 A. None whatever.
40
41 Q. You know there were some before you took over?
42 A. Yes, indeed.
43
44 Q. Two in 1982, I think, one at the beginning of October 1984?
45 A. That is right.
46
47 Q. Have there been, so far as you are aware, any such
48 prosecutions since you stopped being Head of Personnel in
49 1991?
50 A. Not that I know of.
51
52 Q. Do you have a function within McDonald's for keeping an eye
53 on litigious matters?
54 A. I did until I became Ombudsman -- for instance, this
55 case.
56
57 Q. Sticking with this bundle XII, can I ask you to turn on,
58 please, to tab 51B which is right at the back? It is the
59 last item. I am moving now, Mr. Nicholson, from 16 and 17
60 year-olds to people younger than that, children under
