Day 132 - 07 Jun 95 - Page 17
1 a space to put in the local Environmental Health Department
2 who administer the Health & Safety at Work Act. If anybody
3 does feel aggrieved under Health & Safety, they are
4 perfectly at liberty to pick up the telephone and talk to
5 the Enforcement Officer. There is no problem.
6
7 Q. So does McDonald's encourage its crew members to contact
8 the Environmental Health Department of its local authority
9 any time in which they consider the management are not
10 acting effectively or speedily to prevent safety lapses?
11 A. It is not necessary. McDonald's have a very effective
12 system for looking at hazards and dealing with it. Why
13 would they want to perpetuate a hazard? Why would any
14 manager in his right mind want to insist on somebody doing
15 an unsafe job? It is a nonsense. That is not how industry
16 works and that is not how industry is effective or
17 efficient.
18
19 Q. So your presumption is that industry works efficiently for
20 the benefit of the safety of employees?
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. He is saying McDonald's do, and it is a
23 matter you can argue on the whole of the evidence which
24 will include such evidence as you have call in due course,
25 but you have asked Mr. Purslow for his views as an expert
26 and he has, for better or worse, given it to you.
27
28 MR. MORRIS: But whether or not everything in the garden is rosy
29 at McDonald's, would you recognise it would be to the
30 benefit of employees to have their own independent power or
31 system such as their own elected representative with that
32 power to take action themselves over safety issues?
33 A. Not necessarily, no.
34
35 Q. Not necessarily?
36 A. Not necessarily. I can conceive instances whereby an
37 individual may say: "This is a dangerous job". If you are
38 talking about, I do not know, construction industries or
39 one or two industries like that where, let us be -- it is
40 obvious that problems exist, one could understand that that
41 might be of benefit, but I cannot see in the totality of
42 industry with any well conducted, efficient industry that
43 it is necessary. It is not in the interests of the company
44 to expose workers to risk; it would be a nonsense.
45
46 Q. So you claimed concern over employee safety generally at
47 McDonald's or in industry does not extend to advising
48 employers they should empower their employees to have their
49 own independent sanctions over management?
50 A. No, because I do not think it is necessary.
51
52 Q. Because you basically are pro management, pro industry, and
53 that is exactly why you are a McDonald's consultant?
54 A. I am an Environmental Health Officer. I have spent all
55 my working career trying to protect people. I feel that
56 I can do it very effectively in industry by instructing and
57 helping companies to form, to make a safe workplace. If
58 they make a safe workplace, they also end up by making more
59 profit. I see no problem with that. I work within
60 companies and my advice is taken on these matters. In
