Day 192 - 27 Nov 95 - Page 16
1 A. Yes.
2
3 Q. Then you were doing something like six hours a week. From
4 what period did you start doing about six hours a week?
5 A. Probably from the beginning of September until June
6 when I quit, in 1994.
7
8 Q. It might help if you have your statement open in front of
9 you, your first statement.
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Divider 12.
12
13 MR. MORRIS: In your second paragraph, you talked about various
14 things: "unjust firings, threats of firings, work hours
15 cut, cheaper staff hired, verbal and sexual harassment".
16 What do you mean, "threats of firings"?
17 A. What I mean by that is people were afraid of losing
18 their jobs, depending on what kind of mood management was
19 in during that day, whether they were going to be treated
20 fairly or not. It was a sort of hostile atmosphere to work
21 in. People were afraid that, because Cam was a new owner,
22 that maybe they were not up to par with his system; they
23 did not know what type of management techniques that he
24 used. People were, all in all, just afraid of losing their
25 jobs. It was very sort of unstable there, because there
26 were such a high turnover rate.
27
28 Q. Did you ever have any -- did it ever happen to you, threats
29 of firings, or anything like that?
30 A. No, not really.
31
32 Q. You were Worker of the Month, or something; is that
33 correct?
34 A. Yes. When Cam first took over the store, I believe he
35 took it over somewhere between January 1992 and February
36 1992 -- I do not know the exact date. But, anyway, I was
37 made Employee of the Month from March of that year, 1992,
38 under Cam's management.
39
40 Q. Right. What do you mean, cheaper staff were hired?
41 A. Well, in Ontario, the problems of Ontario, there are
42 two minimum wages: one for people that are under the age
43 of 18, and one for people that are like adults and older;
44 and, also, bringing in new staff means that their minimum
45 wage is five cents above minimum wage, whereas people that
46 had been there for, say, four or five, and some people had
47 been there since the store had opened -- which would have
48 been, I guess, 15 years -- are making well above minimum
49 wage. Well, not well above minute minimum wage, but a
50 considerable increase from minimum wage.
51
52 Q. What was he doing to -- I mean, it is pretty obvious from
53 what you have said, but what was he actually doing?
54 A. It seemed as though the older staff were being pushed
55 out; and when he came in, people were usually getting --
56 like, day staff was getting the full-time hours, which is
57 basically six and a half to eight hours a day, five days a
58 week. But when he came over, he cut the shifts from eight
59 hours to six and a half, to five and a half, to four and a
60 half, to three and a half -- and which you do not get a
