Day 181 - 01 Nov 95 - Page 31


     
     1        this part of the industry, I am right in thinking, am
     2        I not, that if your inspectors had reported to you or had
     3        decided for themselves that McDonald's were habitually in
     4        breach of their statutory obligations under the Wages Act
     5        1986, they would have been visited with, I put it
     6        colloquially, a ton of bricks by the Inspectorate, would
     7        they not?
     8        A.  If they found out, yes, but the reporting method -- you
     9        see, given the enormity of the task facing wages
    10        inspectors, you know, 400,000 workplaces and 110 staff,
    11        there were various methods employed to ensure the best
    12        coverage.  They went for an annual coverage of 10 per
    13        cent.  One in 10 workplaces approximately per year were
    14        inspected.  The various survey methods included telephone
    15        enquiry, survey questionnaire and responding to letters
    16        written in by predictably dissatisfied employees, sometimes
    17        people like me supporting them.
    18
    19        So there were three methods of obtaining information that
    20        the wages inspectors employed, and they would reckon on a
    21        10 per cent sweep per year.  So, with the big employers,
    22        the national organisations, what they would tend to do
    23        would be to cut it down to a simple exercise rather than
    24        write to every McDonald's in Britain.  They would assume
    25        consistency of policy and probably -- and I cannot speak
    26        for certainty on McDonald's, but I think it would be
    27        reasonable to assume -- that they would have written to a
    28        senior officer of McDonald's to establish certain things.
    29        They want a copy of the contract of employment and they
    30        would want to understand what the general awareness was of
    31        the minimum rates.  They might ask for confirmation of the
    32        hourly rates strategy.  You know, that would be that.
    33
    34        Of course, you know, if the Company responds:  "We have a
    35        39, we do not do overtime", and so forth -- I am only
    36        saying "if" -- then, given the nature of the Company,
    37        McDonald's, you know, it is not a two bit cafe round the
    38        corner, they might well, the inspectors might well say:
    39         "Fine, that covers 30,000 employees, you know, that covers
    40        350 workplaces.  We have only got 40 -- we have only got,
    41        you know, 39,000 workplaces to go in a year".  It is a
    42        massive task and they would try to simplify it by these
    43        various methods.
    44
    45   Q.   Equally, Mr. Pearson, it is possible, is it not, that --
    46        McDonald's has been in this country now for over 20 years
    47        and it now quite employs a very large number of people,
    48        even in the mid 1980s I dare say it was between, sort of,
    49        15 and 20,000, I do not know -- the wages inspectorate
    50        might have decided, as sometimes these bodies do, to have 
    51        an in depth investigation of just such a large employer to 
    52        see whether or not the reality held up with the fancy 
    53        words, might they not?
    54        A.  Yes, that is possible, just as the Health and Safety
    55        Executive decided to go in closely.
    56
    57   Q.   I am coming to that.  Do not anticipate because you may not
    58        have that quite right.
    59        A.  No, but, I mean, the transparency issue, of course, you
    60        know, transparency in labour statistics; what we have

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