Day 181 - 01 Nov 95 - Page 55


     
     1        from the 1986 Crew Handbook, internal page 41, bundle
     2        page 42, paragraph 4 on that page, the last line,
     3        says: "The maximum hours that young persons can be legally
     4        employed in any one week is 48.  However, McDonald's policy
     5        does not permit crew members to work more than 39 hours
     6        per week."
     7
     8        In your experience as a wage council member, and bearing in
     9        mind the memo which we saw earlier on in 1990 from
    10        Sid Nicholson, head of personnel, about policy not to
    11        employ people over 39 hours a week, would that be the kind
    12        of thing that would be very likely to be taken at face
    13        value as a definitive statement?
    14        A.  Yes; not by any company, not by your small business,
    15        your cafe; the record would probably need to be examined.
    16        But for a significant national employer with organised
    17        personnel practices -- again, I am not privy to the actual
    18        meeting between -- but, you know, on the face of it, this
    19        was precisely the kind of documentation that would be
    20        required to support -- well, which would support --
    21        McDonald's in this case, McDonald's response, saying: "We
    22        work a 39 hour week, no more", all those aspects of the
    23        Wages Council order do not apply.
    24
    25   Q.   Right.  OK.  We have heard that something like 20 per cent,
    26        certainly in London, of McDonald's workers are full-timers;
    27        and if the vast bulk of those working overtime are
    28        full-timers, and that amounts to five per cent of the
    29        workforce, then a quarter of all the full-timers will be
    30        working overtime each week.  Is that -- well, it is an
    31        obvious question, really -- is that a very substantial
    32        percentage?
    33        A.  Yes.  Therein lies the problem, therein lies the
    34        potential area for any, you know, retrospectively
    35        hypothetical -- I think we are talking now retrospectives
    36        and hypotheticals.  But yes, I mean, that is the -- I would
    37        say, as indeed I believe I have covered already, as a
    38        former council member, I would say that that would give the
    39        -- that would be the trigger, those kind of statistics
    40        would be the trigger for a check on the process, bearing in
    41        mind what appears to have been the position, which is that
    42        there was no overtime; and yet the data contradict the
    43        policy.
    44
    45   Q.   Mr. Rampton asked you a hypothetical question about
    46        full-timers being the people who may have got one or two,
    47        or more, performance reviews.  Can I ask you a similarly
    48        hypothetical question:  is it not likely that all the
    49        full-timers at McDonald's will have started without
    50        achieving any performance reviews? 
    51        A.  They would have started on the basic rate. 
    52 
    53   Q.   Yes, of course; 100 per cent of them.  The turnover length
    54        of stay -- you said you did not have any length of stay
    55        data.  If we can go to the documents behind Lynne Mead's
    56        statement, if someone can help me where that is exactly
    57        again.  It is one we did not really look at, except for
    58        very briefly; Mr. Rampton referred to it.  Yellow X -- is
    59        it tab 7?
    60        A.  Yes.

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