Day 303 - 19 Nov 96 - Page 08


     
     1        actually.
     2
     3        Mr. Rampton's line that somehow all the full-timers
     4        magically are starting on higher rates, he, of course, says
     5        on page 55, line 51 that they naturally would start
     6        initially on the starting rate and then the basic rate.  If
     7        they are lucky, they get a five pence rise after four
     8        months or something, or ten pence if they exceed job
     9        requirements.
    10
    11        On page 57 he expressed the view that it is most unusual in
    12        the catering industry, which has a high turnover profile,
    13        to see such wastage - this is in McDonald's computer
    14        printout figures of length of service - such wastage at
    15        such short periods of service, and that could potentially
    16        throw question marks over turnover rates annually of, say,
    17        120 or 150 per cent.
    18
    19        He was very cautious about dealing with McDonald's
    20        statistics and therefore his views are given even stronger
    21        weight, we would say, because of his caution.
    22
    23        Then he said on the top of page 59 about when he visited
    24        the kitchens:  "I believe I saw an operation - this was in
    25        a quiet period - working even then near to its....physical
    26        capacity, because these are not large areas of work.  You
    27        have to remember this.  These are not expansive kitchens.
    28        They are relatively small premises."
    29
    30        Then he says:  "I was there for a matter of minutes, two,
    31        three minutes.  That was the evident limit of my
    32        observation period."  And basically he said that he was
    33        basically in the nicest possible way dragged away from the
    34        back of house during his expert visit.
    35
    36        He comments on the accident books that he saw, on page 60,
    37        and he says the particular problem he noticed was the
    38        problem resulting from wet floors which, of course, is the
    39        feature of McDonald's we have heard from our live witness
    40        ex-workers.
    41
    42        That is Mr. Pearson.  There were a couple of documents
    43        I wanted to look at, just very briefly, from the Health and
    44        Safety Executive report, which I have no doubt you have
    45        noted.  Just three different bits of it.  I noted that on
    46        bundle page 870 there is a list of the restaurants that
    47        were visited and it is 19 McDonald's stores, and on page
    48        845 of the bundle in that report the conclusion was, at the
    49        bottom of the page, "There were some variations in the
    50        condition of the restaurants visited and in two of the
    51        older in-stores formal action would have been appropriate
    52        by a visiting local authority inspector", which implies
    53        that there were breaches of safety regulations requiring
    54        formal action by inspectors in two out of the 19 stores,
    55        which is something like 11 per cent of stores visited.  And
    56        which I say is fairly substantial.
    57
    58        I did not get the references, but clearly in the
    59        introduction of the report it says how local inspectors had
    60        concerns about safety at McDonald's when they were visiting

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