Day 310 - 04 Dec 96 - Page 16
1 earlier in this discussion. So, saying you pay badly for
2 bad conditions is more serious than just saying you pay
3 badly?
4
5 MR. RAMPTON: I have always agreed with the indications
6 your Lordship has given about that. It must be so, that it
7 is a much, much blacker picture. Indeed, if one said the
8 pay is quite decent but the conditions are absolutely
9 awful, one can see the same much greyer picture emerging,
10 as if you reversed them, in the way your Lordship did just
11 now.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. Page 6. Do you remember some time ago
14 I was feeling for what the numbers of employees were,
15 firstly, in this country and in the United States and
16 elsewhere, if possible?
17
18 MR. RAMPTON: I have forgotten to look it up. Can your Lordship
19 take it that it is 32,000, or was when that evidence was
20 given, in the year when that evidence was given, in this
21 country. Worldwide, somebody gave a figure of about two
22 and a half million.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Were both those figures companies or
25 subsidiaries as opposed to franchisees and partners?
26
27 MR. RAMPTON: The English, or the British, figure was, I think,
28 company restaurants. But that may not make a lot of
29 difference, since there are many fewer franchised
30 restaurants proportionally. But it will make some
31 difference.
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Not as much as elsewhere, certainly not as
34 much as the United States.
35
36 MR. RAMPTON: No. What I will get Mr. Atkinson to do --
37 obviously, we will do it before the end of term -- we will
38 get the references for those and what the precise figures
39 are. I am sorry, I know your Lordship said it before and I
40 forgot. If one assumes in this country, for example, that
41 it is 32,000 in any one year, one goes back 22 years or
42 something, one is looking at an awful lot of ex-employees,
43 particularly given the age breakdown of the workforce and
44 the fact that many of them do not even stay for a year.
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It was the figure at any given time, was it
47 not? It was not, "We have employed 32,000 in the course of
48 the last year".
49
50 MR. RAMPTON: No. It may have been Mr. Preston, the question
51 may have been, "How many employees have you got?" It was a
52 point in time answer, I think.
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: On page 15, in paragraph 5, what difficulty
55 would there be in just following the letter of the
56 regulations?
57
58 MR. RAMPTON: Only a practical difficulty -- I do not mean
59 there is any difficulty in principle -- only a practical
60 difficulty in the days before the waste system was fully
