Day 188 - 15 Nov 95 - Page 49


     
     1        people want to enjoy their lives.  If you actually spend
     2        your entire working life -- I mean, I think, you know, I do
     3        it when I go and work for Yorkshire Television, I tell
     4        myself that Emmerdale is the best soap opera on
     5        television.  When I stopped working for it, I might make a
     6        more objective judgment about the nature Emmerdale.  So it
     7        is doing the same thing with working at McDonald's.  But if
     8        you are working for that kind of hours for that low pay,
     9        you need to get considerably into the swing of it to keep
    10        going to do that, whereas at Emmerdale I was actually
    11        working for considerably more money and enjoying it, and
    12        for less hours.
    13
    14   Q.   Why do you say that the people who work long hours -- and
    15        you know that it is disputed that Michael Metcalfe worked
    16        anything like 92 hours in a week, so I do not want to enter
    17        into that -- why do you say that somebody who works long
    18        hours in McDonald's need not enjoy it, or cannot enjoy it?
    19        I do not understand.
    20        A.  Well, because I think it is the pressure that they were
    21        under; the amount of hours consistently, whether it was
    22        that many hours or less than that; the pressure that they
    23        were under; the intensity of it.  It is kind of, you know,
    24        it is not necessarily something that you could say you
    25        would physically really enjoy doing day after day, the
    26        grind of that.  I think it is like any kind of production
    27        line; it is not necessarily the best thing in life to do.
    28
    29   Q.   So far as you could see, who that worked 90 hours or more
    30        in a week was under that kind of pressure, apart from
    31        Michael Metcalfe?
    32        A.  I think a lot -- I think that the lad Pervase, for
    33        example, who stayed on after his shift to go through the
    34        night close; I think a number of people stayed on and did
    35        extra shifts.  They were under that sort of pressure.
    36
    37   Q.   But you saw that happen once?
    38        A.  Well, there is one record of that happening, and I saw
    39        a number of people stay.  I mean, people worked very hard
    40        in McDonald's.
    41
    42   Q.   Yes.
    43        A.  It is a very simple statement.  People work extremely
    44        hard under, during the peak hours, intense pressure.  In
    45        order to make them to do that, I think the Company needs to
    46        produce this ethos of a way of life, rather than just
    47        selling hamburgers.
    48
    49   Q.   If you look over the page, please, page 14?  Do you have an
    50        objection to this what you call American way of life, the 
    51        American Dream? 
    52        A.  I think I probably do think that saying that working in 
    53        a hamburger chain store and doing that, and dedicating
    54        yourself to that as a way of life, is something that I do
    55        not find particularly appealing.
    56
    57   Q.   No?
    58        A.  Just quite straightforwardly.
    59
    60   Q.   Do you see the next paragraph: "Thus quality service and

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