Day 140 - 22 Jun 95 - Page 50
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think you started from the wrong premise.
3 If you like, I will ask it for you. But why not put what
4 you know is a possible practical reality? Let me try,
5 anyway. (To the witness) Your franchisees are hardheaded
6 businessmen or business women, by and large? You do not
7 know what "hardheaded" means?
8 A. No, I do not, my Lord.
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10 Q. It is not, in my terms, critical of them. They are
11 business people through and through. They may have big
12 hearts as well, but they are business people through and
13 through.
14 A. I would agree with the sense, I think, my Lord is
15 using.
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17 Q. Essentially, when you are running a business, you want to
18 take as much as you can in sales and spend as little as you
19 can in cost?
20 A. In a general sense, my Lord. But you also want to be
21 fair to your customers and you want to be fair to your
22 employees.
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24 Q. I think it is really being suggested to you that you may be
25 able to get, if you choose, crew at a lower starting rate
26 in a relatively deprived city centre area, in a particular
27 city which is like that, than you can in a more comfortable
28 suburban area?
29 A. My Lord, if I could respond?
30
31 Q. Yes.
32 A. We are looking for quality people, my Lord; and,
33 without disparaging anybody in the city, often times you
34 are competing for the best people. You are not competing
35 for the lowest pay that you can find; you are competing for
36 the best people. So you are paying at the high end for the
37 best people; and, therefore, I am suggesting to you,
38 my Lord, that we are not looking for the lowest pay and we
39 are not looking to do that. We need to find the best
40 people; and the best people sometimes in the city are in as
41 short supply as there might be short supply elsewhere. So
42 that is not a fair assessment.
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44 MS. STEEL: It would be fair to say that out in the suburbs it
45 is harder for you to get the people you want at the rates
46 that you might be paying in inner city areas?
47 A. You are going to have to rephrase that.
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49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. Try and put it another way.
50 (To the witness) What is being put to you is that,
51 nevertheless, you are likely to be able to get people of
52 sufficient ability and willing to work at a lower rate in a
53 relatively deprived city centre than in a more comfortable
54 suburb; that is just a fact of life?
55 A. My Lord, to generalise in that fashion and to make wide
56 sweeping statements in that fashion, I disagree. First of
57 all, my Lord, workers who may come from the inner city do
58 work in the suburbs in the US, and suburbanites do work in
59 the cities, and they go both ways. So I disagree with
60 that.
