Day 121 - 04 May 95 - Page 08
1 A. No.
2
3 Q. According to those charts, which we looked at in the new
4 documents, under "Controllable Expenses", labour costs was
5 No. 1 on the agenda?
6 A. No, it was not. It is in yellow -- here behind my
7 statement.
8
9 Q. I think we have been through that?
10 A. No, it looks as though it is No. 1 on that because we
11 have blanked out what is before it, but the number does not
12 signify anything. There were equally important
13 controllable expenses following those four weeks.
14
15 Q. There were?
16 A. Yes.
17
18 Q. What were the main ones then in controllable expenses?
19 A. Food costs, paper costs, maintenance and repair of the
20 restaurants, its equipment -- I cannot bring them all to
21 mind now -- local store marketing, marketing. There is a
22 "Miscellaneous Column" which is the petty cash. There are
23 ever so many, and that takes you down to what we call
24 "Profits After Control". Then below that there are the
25 fixed costs over which they have no control -- rent, rates,
26 et cetera, insurance.
27
28 Q. If people come to work as scheduled and the store is not
29 busy, they could be sent home, can they not?
30 A. They could be asked to go home.
31
32 Q. If you look at that, they can be sent home, can they not;
33 the Manager has the power to send them home?
34 A. Yes, he has the power to reduce his staff, certainly.
35 Whether he does that on a voluntary basis or on a fixed
36 basis, I suppose there may be cases when he sends them
37 home.
38
39 Q. He has the power to do it?
40 A. Normally, he would say: "I am over-staffed. Would you
41 like to go home?" That would be the first reaction. Then,
42 depending upon what the result of that was, he may very
43 well say: "Sorry, I cannot offer you any hours".
44
45 Q. Even after they have turned up and had been scheduled?
46 A. I would have thought that would be very rare. I do not
47 know. That is really a question to ask -----
48
49 Q. They have the power to do that; that is the point.
50 A. Yes.
51
52 Q. If we look at Mark Davis's statement, paragraph 23, and
53 two-thirds of the way down that paragraph, he comments on
54 Simon Gibney's statement, that the situation suggested by
55 Simon that people were sent home if the store was not as
56 busy as envisaged was relatively rare" -- relatively rare,
57 whatever that means -- we will find out when he comes --
58 but it happens?
59 A. Yes, I said it does. We try to schedule according to
60 the anticipated volume hour by hour.
