Day 130 - 26 May 95 - Page 69
1 hot burgers with their hand?
2 A. Following the procedures that we taught them, there is
3 no reason why -- that it should be dangerous, apart from
4 the, yes, they are close to hot equipment and may be from
5 time to time they might have a slight accident, but the
6 fact that they are turning the meat over really does not
7 have any bearing on it.
8
9 Q. You also think it is perfectly acceptable in terms of
10 hygiene?
11 A. Well, again, as I say, we have discussed that with many
12 an Environmental Health Officer, and all have been
13 satisfied that it is OK, but the clamshell now, you do not
14 need to turn them anyway, they are just taken off when they
15 are cooked.
16
17 Q. These EHOs, presumably, they brought it up because they
18 were not happy with it?
19 A. Well, I think, sort of, in looking at it -----
20
21 MR. RAMPTON: Is Ms. Steel going to listen to the answer or
22 not?
23
24 MR. MORRIS: Sorry, carry on.
25 A. In looking at it initially, you might feel that: "Ah,
26 well, they are touching it; maybe there is a risk", but
27 when you look at what actually happens and the fact that
28 the hand-washing procedures are in place as well, the risk
29 is negligible.
30
31 MS. STEEL: I just want to ask about hustle. Since hustle was
32 so widely interpreted and, according to you, misinterpreted
33 to include running and things like that -- obviously,
34 people were running, thinking that was part of hustle, but
35 you say that was a misinterpretation of what it was
36 supposed to be -- since it was so widely interpreted, why
37 did you not just scrap the word "hustle" and bring in "safe
38 working practices"?
39 A. Why should we when it is a term that was well-known, we
40 knew we could replace it with something that would become
41 equally as well-known. What we replaced it with is
42 actually in support of safe team work, working safely, so
43 why change completely?
44
45 Q. To make it clear to employees that safety is the most
46 important matter?
47 A. Well, you know, I suppose it was one option open to
48 us. We did not choose that option and the option that we
49 went with was one that was perfectly acceptable to the HSE
50 who, as you know, were involved in assessing us at the
51 time.
52
53 Q. I suggest to you the reason why you stuck with the word
54 "hustle" was because it has connotations of working at
55 speed and you wanted the employees to continue to work at
56 speed?
57 A. That is just not what happened at all.
58
59 Q. There is one other matter that I wanted to ask about. You
60 said in your evidence-in-chief that in terms of safety
