Day 130 - 26 May 95 - Page 31
1 that are quite young getting the accidents?
2 A. Well, to be honest, you would expect that because it
3 is, sort of, the age range that our crew extends over.
4
5 Q. The pages are numbered, yes, that is useful. Can you see
6 the numbers on the side?
7 A. We have in the past prepared the breakdown of accidents
8 in terms of age versus the breakdown in Company makeup
9 age-wise. So, say, four per cent of our crew are between
10 the ages of, I do not know, 18 and 22, then you find they
11 pretty much correlate with the sort of accidents that are
12 happening. You get a corresponding percentage. There is
13 not one particular age range that seems to be particularly
14 at risk.
15
16 Q. That is for RIDDOR accidents, is not it?
17 A. It would be for the RIDDOR ones, yes, because that is
18 the ones we keep the database on. The only age range
19 actually that we found was a little greater was the 60 to
20 65s. I think it is more just that if people of that age do
21 fall in our restaurants, they are more likely to sustain a
22 serious injury, just because of bones being more brittle.
23
24 Q. If we just go to AC, that third page?
25 A. Yes.
26
27 Q. I just want to note that Trudy Jones was a Floor Manager at
28 19. That is very young to be a Floor Manager?
29 A. No, Floor Managers start from 18. They are still
30 hourly paid. It is generally 18 to 21, and then if they
31 are progressing through the Company, at 21 they go
32 salaried.
33
34 Q. OK.
35 A. But, remember, Floor Managers here are probably just
36 looking after one particular part of the Operations, say,
37 the kitchen. They would have a shift manager looking after
38 them.
39
40 Q. If we look at AF, I notice a number of the burns, if we
41 look at the fourth one down, burned arms and hand on grill,
42 arms and hand I notice. It struck me that quite a lot of
43 burns seemed to be as a result of slips, where people slip
44 and they put out their hands to stop themselves. That is
45 quite common, is it?
46 A. Well, going back to this period, which is the mid 80s,
47 certainly some of the most concerning accidents that would
48 have been happening were the ones where people fell on the
49 grills, but at that stage we did not have any other type of
50 equipment to use. 1992, when we went to the clamshells, as
51 we saw the the accident statistics, those sort of -- what
52 we categorise as -- manual handling injuries, to a large
53 extent, because it is people working on the grill, they
54 fell in number, and certainly now if you should slip, you
55 would put your hand on the top of a clamshell which,
56 although it is warm, it is not going to burn.
57
58 Additionally, of course, with the slip resistant floor, the
59 new sort we put in there, as opposed to the old tiles that
60 used to get worn quite quickly, the old slip resistant
