Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 24
1 MR JUSTICE BELL: Just pause a moment. (Pause) Yes.
2
3 MR. MORRIS: This should particularly apply to vulnerable
4 sections of the workforce. For example, young people, low
5 paid people, people with no unions, union protection,
6 people who do not get overtime payments. I mean,
7 obviously, if you do work overtime you should be paid.
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9 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I understand, you need not...
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11 MR. MORRIS: So it is even more important.
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13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: They get higher rate.
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15 MR. MORRIS: People who do not have -- people whose hours --
16 because management have the right to extend hours, because
17 there is no guaranteed hours at McDonald's and the
18 management have the right to extend hours, then McDonald's
19 staff are in a particularly vulnerable situation.
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21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I did not actually know anything about how
22 they came to work for 96 hours, did I? I mean, I did with
23 one or two specific witnesses, but not the ones who just
24 come up on the computer printout.
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26 MR. MORRIS: No, we have heard evidence of people working long
27 hours in, for example, Colchester stores.
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29 MR JUSTICE BELL: I am not talking about those, they may not be
30 anonymous because there is a name there, but I have no face
31 fit to them and do not know anything about them.
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33 MR. MORRIS: Right. We also heard, for example, Mr. Preston
34 said the whole purpose of that was to prevent it happening
35 again, and then we showed that one store had done the same
36 thing, I think it was either four fortnights in a row or
37 four fortnights within six or seven.
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39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It appears that the only -- if one could
40 search for logical reasons for having a policy not to work
41 over 39 hours, that it started with having to pay overtime
42 if one worked more than that, or 40 hours in the United
43 States, and the company did not want to do that, because it
44 would cost them more money, then although no-one in the
45 witness box was prepared to rationalise it over here, there
46 may be someone somewhere who thinks essentially it is not
47 terribly fair to work over 39 hours without paying
48 overtime, if you are not going to do that you had better
49 try to stick to 39 hours.
50
51 MR. MORRIS: Also, of course, that policy may satisfy the wages
52 inspectorate. They think -----
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54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You obviously run into a risk, even on your
55 own construction of what the rules and regulations mean,
56 that as at the moment -- we have not heard it from,
57 Mr. Rampton if he wants to say anything more about it --
58 Mr. Alimi did, on the face of it got paid, if there was
59 still a minimum wage then, I cannot remember, I think there
60 was, was there not?
