Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 28


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Nine to half past five, I would think of as
     2        a 37 and a half hour week, which is still fairly standard
     3        in some places, is it not?  But I mean, if I have
     4        overlooked -- I just do not think I had any evidence on it,
     5        did I, about comparisons?
     6
     7   MR. MORRIS:   I can't remember now.
     8
     9   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   None of this has anything to do with your
    10        points about when you get your breaks, whether you are
    11        expected to come back early or anything like that; it is
    12        just whether I can say that McDonald's treat their
    13        employees badly because they do not pay them during their
    14        -----
    15
    16   MR. MORRIS:   They do not pay them during their break, no.
    17        I would say, anyway, you should be paid, it should be
    18        recognised as part of your work time.  If you are being
    19        paid for your break, it is obviously going to be counted as
    20        part of your work time and therefore it goes towards the,
    21        you know, total hours that you actually have been present
    22        at work, and on top of that you should be paid overtime.
    23        I still say it is part of the whole picture.  Because if
    24        they were paid, it would certainly be in the calculations.
    25
    26   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Right.
    27
    28   MR. MORRIS:   Can I just say a helpful -- I am not sure whether
    29        we looked at it in the case, it is in McDonald's personnel
    30        policies and procedures manual which was served quite
    31        late.  I don't know where it got put.  But it was a large
    32        document and there was a whole...  It was dated 1988,
    33        August 1988, and it was pages 27 and 28 of one of the
    34        bundles, as far as I can see, and has all the legal
    35        obligations, what McDonald's calls 'legal obligations
    36        regarding hours of work'.  We may have looked at it
    37        briefly.
    38
    39        It seems to be the company's position on what their
    40        obligations were under the law regarding Sunday working,
    41        under 18 year-olds, which applied at that time, rest days,
    42        how the time records should be filled out.  In fact, while
    43        I am on this document, if I can make a couple of points on
    44        it, here it says point 2A, 'it is illegal for any young
    45        person to work more than 48 hours in any one week'.
    46        However, the company policy is that hourly paid employees
    47        should not work more than 39 hours in any one week.
    48
    49        There are other various restrictions.  No young person can
    50        commence work before 6 a.m.  There is the ones we have
    51        heard a lot of in this case, obviously, about at one time
    52        it was illegal to work past ten o'clock if you were a
    53        female, past twelve if you were a male and under 18.  There
    54        were all kinds of provisions about Sunday working, if you
    55        work on Sunday they must receive a day off during that same
    56        week, if you work for more than four hours on a Sunday.  If
    57        you do, if one of your working days is a Sunday, you must
    58        also be given a relevant half or full day off.  That is
    59        rest days.
    60

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