Day 166 - 28 Sep 95 - Page 58


     
     1        final speech that it be so.
     2
     3   MR. MORRIS:  Yes, we are calling an expert on employment
     4        conditions, Mr. Phil Pearson.  If there is anything we
     5        forget to put to him (because we have not done the
     6        preparations for his examination-in-chief yet), then we
     7        would welcome any questions that you have to ask him
     8        anyway.
     9
    10   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I think you ought in one way or another to
    11        set it out.  If it is not in the statement now, prepare
    12        something, however short, by way of supplemental.  Apart
    13        from anything else, I will have it in my bundle and I will
    14        know it is there.  Is it in Mr. Pearson already?
    15
    16   MR. MORRIS:  I do not know.  He has written quite a wide ranging
    17        statement about -----
    18
    19   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Check at some time because whatever
    20        difficulty you have with people who have worked as crew at
    21        McDonald's and have gone off to some other part of the
    22        country to work for someone else or carry on with their
    23        studies, whatever difficulty you have getting supplemental
    24        statements from them, I would not have thought you would
    25        have much difficulty getting one from Mr. Pearson clearly.
    26
    27   MR. MORRIS:  Getting hold of him is not difficult, it is the
    28        time factor.
    29
    30   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I agree, but if you make the point to him,
    31        I should have thought Mr. Pearson could turn something out
    32        which quite concisely tells me what his experience is of
    33        this matter.  He is TGWU which is a union, I assume, which
    34        covers a number of industries and kind of jobs which is not
    35        focused on one in particular.
    36
    37   MR. MORRIS:  He is not currently employed by the Transport and
    38        General Workers Union but he was -----
    39
    40   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I am assuming he has experience of a number
    41        of industries rather than one in particular.
    42
    43   MR. MORRIS:  Certainly.  Anyway, there we are.
    44
    45   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, if I may, I would correct one thing that
    46        the Defendants have been saying.  My belief is that the
    47        Wages Council requirements for the payment of overtime
    48        apply only to workers 21 years or over in age.
    49
    50   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I am conscious of that.  I know we have got 
    51        the argument about what the effect of their provisions 
    52        was.  I have a grip of all that. 
    53
    54   MS. STEEL:  So if they are not protected by law, McDonald's is
    55        happy to exploit them.
    56
    57   MR. RAMPTON:  That is a fine comment, but your Lordship is, with
    58        respect, quite right.  If some different case from what is
    59        in these Wages Council documents is to be advanced, then we
    60        must have notice of it.

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