Day 123 - 09 May 95 - Page 50


     
     1   Q.   Apart from concerns over the insurance premiums, does the
     2        company keep details of employee accidents?
     3        A.  We do not keep a lot of details, to my knowledge, to my
     4        recollection.  You perhaps might be able to get a little
     5        more information from a subsequent witness, from
     6        Mr. Stein.  As I indicated in earlier testimony, the bulk
     7        of our restaurants in the United States are franchised.  84
     8        per cent of them are franchised, so we have no way of
     9        collecting all of the data and information from each one of
    10        those restaurants, 8400, 8500 restaurants in the United
    11        States.
    12
    13   Q.   So in fact you might not really know what is going on then
    14        in terms of ----
    15        A.  I would not make that leap.  I would not conclude that.
    16
    17   Q.   How would you know what is going on if your franchisees
    18        were not telling you what was going on?
    19        A.  I think we are informed.  We certainly do not know all
    20        of the day to day details of what is going on in each and
    21        every one of those restaurants, but if there are matters of
    22        some significance that would have some bearing on impact on
    23        the system, on other restaurants, then we want to know or
    24        we would make ourselves better informed.
    25
    26   Q.   What if they did not want to tell you?
    27        A.  What if they did not want to tell us?
    28
    29   Q.   Yes, you wanted some documents off them.
    30        A.  It is not that we are ignorant to what is going on in
    31        the restaurants.  We visit their restaurants on a regular
    32        basis.  We have consultants, Human Resource consultants,
    33        and others that visit the restaurants from time to time to
    34        look at the level of operations, to look at policies,
    35        procedures, that sort of thing and make recommendations to
    36        the franchisees.
    37
    38   Q.   But if they did not want to give you certain documents that
    39        you wanted, or would they have to if you asked to see some?
    40        A.  Documents like what?
    41
    42   Q.   I do not know, maybe accident records, for example.  Is
    43        part of the agreement that they have to show you any
    44        records which you want to see?
    45        A.  Well, I cannot think of any instance where the
    46        information that we have asked for has not been provided,
    47        particularly if that information is helpful in determining
    48        whether or not they have violated any laws, state, federal
    49        or local laws.  I mean, it is important that they operate
    50        their restaurant in an upstanding manner and they do not 
    51        violate any regulations or laws, and if there is some 
    52        evidence that they have done so, or there have been 
    53        complaints to that effect, then we certainly would want to
    54        research that information, collect whatever data we could
    55        to ascertain that, in fact, they have violated some law.
    56
    57   Q.   But they would not want to show you things which would
    58        indicate that they were breaking the law, would they, so
    59        how would you get access?
    60        A.  Well, you are making the assumption that we do not have

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