Day 128 - 24 May 95 - Page 29
1 necessarily directed just at running and rushing, but
2 I think the suggestion is that working at speed is put at a
3 premium in McDonald's and that is bound to increase the
4 incidence of accidents and injuries. What do you say about
5 that?
6 A. Well, I suppose, unless you do things very slowly and
7 very deliberately every time, that you could argue that in
8 increasing the efficiency of what you do, you increase the
9 risk. However, from a practical standpoint, I would not do
10 things slowly and deliberately at home every time, and
11 I suppose in a real world there is a working speed that you
12 go at.
13
14 MS. STEEL: Things that might not necessarily make the RIDDOR
15 statistics, like burns or scalds, scalds caused by bumping
16 into someone when you are trying to, you know, prepare a
17 coffee for an order, or burns caused by quickly flipping
18 over the burgers, not really thinking about what you are
19 doing because you are doing it at such a speed. Things
20 like that would be reduced, would they not, if employees
21 were instructed that you should not be working at speed,
22 you should be working at whatever pace is safe; put safety
23 before speed?
24 A. Certainly safety is in there with the definition of
25 hustle now. The examples you have given, I have seen both
26 of those happen in stores when they have been very quiet
27 and people have not been rushing. I suppose you could
28 argue, as I have just said, that doing them quicker
29 increases the chance of it happening.
30
31 Q. They are more likely to happen if people are working fast
32 and not consciously thinking about taking care?
33 A. One thing you are doing, if you are doing things more
34 quickly, you are doing more actions in that same time, so
35 just from that very aspect alone, you could say you
36 increase the risk.
37
38 Q. You said that safety is in there in the definition of
39 "hustle" now?
40 A. Yes.
41
42 Q. That was in response to the Health and Safety Executive
43 report?
44 A. We actual implemented the change before the report came
45 out, but it was -----
46
47 Q. You had discussions by that stage with the Health and
48 Safety Executive?
49 A. Yes, we discussed it with Andrew Foster while he was
50 doing his assessment plan.
51
52 MR. JUSTICE BELL: My reaction to the new definition to "hustle"
53 is that if I had to define what "hustle" would mean to me,
54 not having been familiar with the word, I have to say, that
55 is the last definition in the world I would have thought
56 of. It is a completely artificial one. It is not
57 artificial in the sense that it is redefined for people who
58 are working, but it is not what the word itself would mean.
59 A. No, it is not. We use it in a very specific way. The
60 reason we chose the three Cs, is that it is something that
