Day 164 - 26 Sep 95 - Page 34


     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  How many people were employed as crew in this
     3        restaurant?
     4
     5   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, the payroll base was about 100 and
     6        something, between 90 something and 100 and something at
     7        any given time.  At a busy time there would be 30 to 40,
     8        maybe even 50 people, in the restaurant.
     9
    10   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You have not any specific employee in mind?
    11
    12   MR. MORRIS:  Again he has indicated it is a general practice.
    13        I could ask him:  "Name me 30 employees or something".  I
    14        do not know if that would help.  I could contact him and
    15        ask him, but he might just say it was something that was
    16        standard or so prevalent.  If we named specific employees,
    17        then McDonald's might say:  "Well, that might have applied
    18        to just one or two employees that you have named".  This
    19        goes to the previous point, which is that if it is just one
    20        incident then the Plaintiffs say it is just one incident.
    21        It is important to see the overall picture, systematic
    22        picture.
    23
    24        Shall I go on to point C?
    25
    26   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    27
    28   MR. MORRIS:  Point C, weekly time sheets schedules for 1994, can
    29        I say that these applications, although they relate to the
    30        Bath store, these are documents which may help the court
    31        generally to be able to see the working practices in
    32        McDonald's stores in terms of how they organise things and
    33        how they monitor and record things.  I think most of this
    34        application are things we have not had any or just one or
    35        two maybe we have had copies of before, or just a copy that
    36        has not been filled in.
    37
    38        Point C, weekly time sheets schedules for 1994, we are
    39        fortunate in this situation where I think we have asked for
    40        this in the past, that Mr. Richards says on page 4 of his
    41        statement, line 8, about schedules:  "Bath has a policy of
    42        storing them for 18 months before disposing of them."  So
    43        we are asking for, the dispute over scheduling is -- sorry,
    44        Mr. Logan has raised it in his page 2 of his statement.
    45
    46   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What are you hoping to demonstrate from the
    47        schedules?
    48
    49   MR. MORRIS:  He says in his statement:  "It was common practice
    50        for the schedule to be used as a tool of discipline by 
    51        senior management", which he had personally witnessed on 
    52        several occasions, reducing people's hours or giving 
    53        predominantly unsocial hours to employees they did not
    54        consider to perform well.  That is something from his
    55        personal experience because he was part of the management
    56        team.
    57
    58   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, but what are you hoping that you will
    59        see on a schedule which you will think will help you over
    60        that?

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