Day 209 - 25 Jan 96 - Page 11
1 A. Sorry, can I come in there again? Just in some of the
2 statements said previously it said that the schedules were
3 checked, but the schedules were only ever checked comparing
4 them to a matrix to see how many people you had on, but
5 there was never a check to see if someone was being given
6 biased hours, if someone was being picked on. There was no
7 system -- the schedules were never checked for that.
8
9 People's hours, the total hours they worked in a week, were
10 never written down at the side of it. I am not sure if
11 they were meant to be, but they were never written down.
12 So nobody ever had regular hours. So, somebody one week
13 could have 40 hours and next week they could have 16 hours,
14 you know, or even less. I know a chap who had two four
15 hour shifts in a week and he was full-time. I mean, there
16 was no check for that. But the Manager perhaps above the
17 person who was doing the schedule, the Store Manager, would
18 check that the schedule coincided with the matrix, so that
19 all the numbers added up, but he did not check individual
20 crew to see if there was any anything going on that, you
21 know, might show that people are being harassed.
22
23 Q. That is what you meant by inconsistencies, is it that, in
24 that?
25 A. Yes. These inconsistencies, some people always getting
26 a Saturday night close, you know, which is probably the
27 most unpopular shift; you know, they keep getting them, and
28 they complain about them. But, you know, who are they
29 going to complain to?
30
31 Q. I will go on over the page: "Overtime. As a crew member
32 myself, approximately 1991, during summer vacations from
33 college, I consistently worked well over 45 hours every
34 week during our busy periods, eg, July, August, tourist
35 season. This was the case for other employees. As a
36 Manager, I was aware that many employees consistently
37 worked 45 hours a week every week for several weeks in a
38 row and did not receive any overtime. The evening and
39 night shift breaks of pay, an extra 25 pence and 50 pence
40 respectively (always were considered to be
41 compensation/incentives for working unsocial hours) and, to
42 my knowledge, in five years' employment at McDonald's there
43 was never any suggestion that this money in some way
44 covered overtime. I was told as a crew member by a Manager
45 that overtime was not paid because the schedule was done
46 over eight days, not seven."
47 A. Can I explain what I meant by that? It is -- when I
48 was a crew member, I asked why people did not get overtime,
49 and it was explained to me that the schedule was done on a
50 eight day basis which meant you did six days working and
51 two days off. So it added up to eight days, so in a one
52 week period you might do 40 hours one week but the next
53 week you might have three days off, so you might not do 40
54 hours.
55
56 So, therefore, they did not have to pay you overtime,
57 because if you did do over 40 or 39 hours one week, you
58 were not going to do it the next week and that was the
59 justification for not paying overtime, even though we were
60 all fully aware that, you know, we all did, you know, a
