Day 181 - 01 Nov 95 - Page 11
1 Q. Absolutely.
2 A. But the sufficiency issue, my opinion would be that a
3 bun would be very marginal, very marginal.
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is a matter for me, I am afraid.
6
7 MS. STEEL: Right. Just one other thing about this. I mean, on
8 page 639 it does say: "Where a worker is not supplied by
9 the employer with either full board and lodging or meals
10 whilst on duty, the rates of pay in (1) above shall be
11 increased by ú2.36 per hour for the first 39 hours worked
12 by him in any week."
13
14 The figure of ú2.36 an hour, was there kind of any
15 comparable figure in terms of how much should be available
16 to be spent on a meal? For example, we have heard that at
17 McDonald's (certainly in some stores) there was a specific
18 hourly allowance where if you worked one hour you were
19 entitled to -- this is not the right figure -- something
20 like 40 or 50 pence towards a meal. Would there be a
21 figure for that, or should it have been ú2.36 or -----
22 A. It is 2.36 pence per hour.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: 2.36 pence?
25 A. Yes. Sorry. It is 2.36 pence; and if you multiply
26 that by 39, that does not amount to a great deal of money.
27
28 Q. It surprised me. I mean, it is actually less than ú1?
29 A. Yes, my Lord. The point that was always made, though,
30 is that you were talking about marginal cost pricing with
31 staff meals; especially in the larger catering units, you
32 would be producing hundreds and hundreds of meals a day.
33 So the marginal cost to the Company providing staff food
34 would be the basis on which this calculation was made; not
35 the average cost, but the marginal cost. I am only an
36 amateur economist, but marginal cost means the price of the
37 last ones rather than the average price.
38
39 MR JUSTICE BELL: I know we get into deep water, which I do not
40 think it is necessary to here.
41
42 MR. MORRIS: I have not got many further questions; just a
43 couple of questions from your statement. You have said
44 that you had visited McDonald's workers when you were
45 recruiting for the union on a number of occasions?
46 A. That is true.
47
48 Q. In general, can you say -- we are talking about
49 specifically McDonald's workers -- what was the kind of
50 response that you experienced?
51 A. The response was -- well, where did we go? We went to
52 Warren Street, we went to Narrow Way in Hackney, we went to
53 a place in Queensway -- Inner London locations, a number of
54 them, over that period 1986/1987, supported by individuals
55 from the International Workers branch, as I said earlier;
56 and we would turn up. There would be catering workers
57 lobbying catering workers. It was not people like me in
58 suits; it was staff in the industry contacting staff in
59 another part of the industry. You would have a chef, you
60 would have waiting staff, you would have bar staff, outside
