Day 171 - 11 Oct 95 - Page 30


     
     1        the sum of the point is whether it is exploitation of crew
     2        by McDonald's, because that is the sting of the employment
     3        part, to pay them the ordinary rate rather than time and a
     4        quarter time or time and a half or double time for the
     5        extra six hours.  Why do I not see the documentation and
     6        form my own view about that?
     7
     8   MR. RAMPTON:  By all means.  I have no objection in principle,
     9        none at all, to your Lordship seeing the documents.  I do
    10        not believe -- and, as I say, I have looked at a month's
    11        worth of documents -- there is nothing in there which, from
    12        my point of view as advocate for McDonald's, that even
    13        gives me the slightest queasiness or qualm, nothing at
    14        all.  All you have there are figures; and in most cases
    15        people worked a good deal less than 39 hours a week, even
    16        the full-timers.  There are one or two like Mr. Dixon that
    17        go over the top one week out of four.  Some people work
    18        quite long shifts occasionally.
    19
    20        I do ask myself how is your Lordship going to be served by
    21        having another month, another 100 pages of the same kind of
    22        stuff.  That is all.
    23
    24   MR. JUSTICE BELL: If I can argue back at you, from the judge's
    25        point of view, the benefit might be that in a situation
    26        where one has a number of contests between what your
    27        witnesses say is not only the theory but the practice at
    28        McDonald's and what at this stage I have to anticipate will
    29        be the evidence of defence witnesses as to what actually
    30        happened at various places, Bath might be an opportunity to
    31        look at some documentation which might be the key one way
    32        or the other there, anyway, might it not?
    33
    34   MR. RAMPTON:  I do not see how it possibly could be; and this is
    35        where I find that the logic of the thing falls down.  If
    36        you have Bath in all its glory over, let us say, a month in
    37        1939 and a month in 1994, and Mr. Morris and Ms. Steel pick
    38        out this that and the other employee, whether named or not,
    39        whether identified by full name or by letter, who has
    40        worked X hours in a week or in a single day, what I do not
    41        follow is, if that person is not him or herself a witness,
    42        how that information could conceivably help your Lordship
    43        to say: "Well, ah, yes, but a similar person in Colchester
    44        also worked 45 hours, and they say it was exploitation;
    45        therefore, that is what happened in Bath."  It simply does
    46        not follow, because there is a myriad of reasons why people
    47        work long hours -- or, indeed, short hours, for that
    48        matter.  Without the direct evidence from the witness
    49        concerned about why it happened, the information is quite
    50        frankly valueless, in our respectful submission. 
    51 
    52        I go so far as to say that, actually, about Mr. Logan's 
    53        named people, because again they are not going to come and
    54        give evidence; any evidence that Mr. Logan gives about the
    55        reasons why they did or did not do X or Y hours is almost
    56        certain to be hearsay and inadmissible, and without the
    57        people in court to say: "I was forced to stay on when
    58        I wanted to go home" or "I was sent home when I wanted to
    59        stay on", or whatever it may be, or, "They punished me by
    60        altering my schedules, reducing them or enlarging", then

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