Day 303 - 19 Nov 96 - Page 41


     
     1        cards.  There was reference during the course of some
     2        of...  I do not know whether it is Mr. Nicholson's
     3        evidence, or who, about one of the things that made up for
     4        the low wages at McDonald's was the meal, that people could
     5        have as much as they wanted to eat, which obviously we
     6        would say does not make up for low wages, anyway,
     7        particularly not bearing in mind that it is not good for
     8        people to be eating that type of food on a frequent basis.
     9        So, if they are at work every day, or five or six days a
    10        week, it would be an extremely bad idea.
    11
    12        Also, the point in relation to that is that it was clear
    13        from evidence of our witnesses and also from the crew
    14        training programme on page 412 that there was a meal
    15        allocation, and it was not as much as people wanted, there
    16        was a certain amount per hour worked that people could have
    17        towards the cost of food.  It is not a particularly
    18        important part, but in case it is harped on about in the
    19        closing speech from the Plaintiffs I mention it.
    20
    21        One other point on Denise Pearce, which is that I recollect
    22        that she said that she accepted that her department were
    23        reliant on complaints by the crew members in order to
    24        discover whether there were faults in the amount that had
    25        been paid to the workers.  Clearly, that is an
    26        unsatisfactory way of paying people, particularly in
    27        relation to the point about overtime pay; you know, that
    28        the crew members would have to point it out themselves if
    29        they worked excessive hours and had not been paid
    30        overtime.  They would have to work out for themselves
    31        whether or not the legal requirements have been met
    32        according to McDonald's interpretation.
    33
    34        But a general point is the reality is that most people do
    35        not really check their wage slips, they trust the Company
    36        to; not just McDonald's, but most employees generally trust
    37        the Company to be getting it right.  But even if they do
    38        check unless they have been making a careful note of all
    39        the hours they have been working they are not going to be
    40        able to tell whether or not they have been paid the right
    41        amount anyway.
    42
    43        I have not had time to go through all of Mr. Alimi's wage
    44        slips recently, and I cannot actually remember all of the
    45        things I worked out before, but there are two examples that
    46        I can see where even by McDonald's own standards Mr. Alimi
    47        was not paid enough.  One of those is for 22nd February
    48        1986 where Mr. Alimi worked 98.94 hours in a fortnight and
    49        his gross pay was 207.42.  The basic rate was 1.88, which,
    50        as far as I can tell, was the minimum wage although,
    51        because this is before the first Wages Council Act -- that
    52        we have got a copy of -- I do not know for sure that that
    53        was the minimum rate.
    54
    55        But if you work it out on the basis that -- well, no,
    56        actually, this is the one that is really confusing because
    57        Mr. Alimi is getting £1.93 an hour but according to the
    58        crew salary history, which is page 672 of one of the pink
    59        volumes -- it might be pink 15 I can check in a minute --
    60        but the minimum rate should have been £1.99.  So I do not

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