Day 197 - 07 Dec 95 - Page 59
1 Q. You mean you sat on your back side and waited for people
2 to come and ask for work?
3 A. No. We actively looked, but it is like anything, if
4 you put an advert out today for someone to come and do
5 your job, it is people that apply for that job that get
6 interviewed.
7
8 Q. Colchester is a garrison town, is it not?
9 A. It is, yes.
10
11 Q. That means there must be barracks and stuff like that
12 round about?
13 A. There is not surprisingly, yes.
14
15 Q. Did you advertise in the Sergeants' Mess or anything like
16 that?
17 A. We advertised in the Garrison paper in a -- there was
18 a local garrison shop and places like that where we
19 advertised for staff, yes.
20
21 Q. What about students, how many colleges or education places
22 are there around Colchester?
23 A. There is a big university, sixth form colleges.
24
25 Q. Did you advertise there too?
26 A. We did, yes.
27
28 Q. He says at the bottom of page 45: "Overall Objectives -
29 (1) increase crew levels to 100 and maintain until
30 Christmas; (2) reduce annual turnover by 20 per cent." It
31 is a recurrent theme in these performance reviews?
32 A. Again if you look at those two statements they both
33 contradict each other. "Increase your crew levels and
34 maintain until Christmas", so after Christmas they are no
35 longed needed. "Reduce annual turnover by 20 per cent".
36 How do I do both? You told me that my answer to
37 everything is the two written rules. Well, there it is in
38 black and white: Maintain till Christmas. Then what?
39 Sack them?
40
41 Q. It depends how quickly you drop them after Christmas, does
42 it not, Mr. Coton. If you engage people who are willing
43 to stay as full-timers and go on working throughout the
44 year, you do not have this problem. You have some
45 turnover at Christmas and that is it?
46 A. The trouble is the people who tended to stay were the
47 part-timers for the very fact that very few people wanted
48 to work within the environment full time as crew members,
49 and they were the people you tended to lose most. There
50 is a contradiction in standards; it is there.
51
52 Q. Mr. Coton, that is not right logically, is it? If you
53 have a sufficient number of well-trained, experienced
54 full-time crew and Managers, then you can well bear a
55 certain increase in the number of part-timers at busy
56 periods, can you not?
57 A. Right, if I can sort of go on to that point a little
58 bit further, it is very easy to talk in terms of the
59 manual whilst we are sitting in here. How do you get
60 someone who has taken a job full-time which they take to
