Day 175 - 18 Oct 95 - Page 34


     
     1        because, depending on what the regime was, one rule was
     2        enforceable one week, the next week it was not; and
     3        probably -----
     4
     5   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Are you saying that that was intentional?
     6        I mean, I can imagine that some managers were stricter than
     7        others; some people are more laid back than others.  Was
     8        there more than that to it?
     9        A.  That was definitely the case, but there was more to it
    10        as well, I think, because it did not -- a laid back manager
    11        might be one of the ones who carried out one of the severe
    12        decisions.
    13
    14        One of the things I think about, that comes to mind, is
    15        someone who had worked there for a long time and was
    16        considered to be one of the most able members of staff, at
    17        the end of an evening asked another member of staff to
    18        throw them some food out of the production bin.  The shop
    19        had been shut, so it was all going to be thrown away.  The
    20        rule was strictly that everything was thrown away and no
    21        one was allowed to eat anything, but a lot of the time,
    22        most of the time, that rule was relaxed.  So when someone
    23        has, quite openly in front of all the staff, asked someone
    24        to chuck them a burger, the other guy threw him a burger,
    25        started to eat it, and the Manager said, "What are you
    26        doing", and he said, "I am just eating" whatever it was,
    27        and he got sacked on the spot for it; whereas a week before
    28        he would have done it and the Manager might have chucked
    29        him a burger.  In fact, that actual Manager often dished
    30        the food out at the end of the evening.
    31
    32        Another thing, I got a written warning when I worked at
    33        McDonald's for putting lettuce in a Quarter Pounder that
    34        I was going to have in my break.  The Manager actually made
    35        a formal warning out of it.
    36
    37   MR. MORRIS:  Can you explain why you would get a warning for
    38        that?
    39        A.  The Manager's explanation for it was that if customers
    40        knew that staff put lettuce in their Quarter Pounders, they
    41        would want to, and that would destroy the sales of
    42        Big Macs.  But I just saw it as an example of pettiness.
    43
    44        During the time the discussions were taking place amongst
    45        staff about unionising, it was decided by the management
    46        that we would no longer to be able to have music playing
    47        when we closed the store and cleaned up at the end of the
    48        evening, even though we had always been allowed to do it
    49        prior to that time.  There was no real reason given, except
    50        that it was distracting people, so the music was stopped; 
    51        and that was just seen as a chance to get at the staff. 
    52 
    53   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Just pause a moment.  We will have five
    54        minutes' break now.
    55
    56                          (Short adjournment)
    57
    58   MR. MORRIS:  In the bottom paragraph on that page, you talked
    59        about staffing levels always kept at absolute minimum to
    60        keep costs down and managers competing to see who would run

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