Day 195 - 04 Dec 95 - Page 12


     
     1        A.  Any Manager who was running the shift would have told
     2        you that.
     3
     4   Q.   "I worked, on average, six days a week and could do
     5        anything between 32 to 60 hours per week.  Part-timers were
     6        generally there just to fill in the gaps where there was
     7        nobody else to work.  There was no difference in the hours
     8        worked by a full-time worker simply because that person was
     9        under 18.
    10
    11        People were often phoned up and asked to come in to work on
    12        their rest days.  Those who were rung generally did come
    13        into work for similar reasons to the reasons why peopled
    14        worked past their schedule hours.  Pressure was put on them
    15        and they were made to fear that their work hours would be
    16        cut down.  Generally, however, management always turned to
    17        those people who they knew needed the extra hours and there
    18        is no doubt that sometimes people were quite prepared to
    19        come in on their rest day anyway.
    20        However, management sometimes went too far and took
    21        advantage of a situation.
    22
    23        Nobody was ever allowed to take a taxi home paid by
    24        McDonald's if they had worked a late shift.  I only lived
    25        10 minutes walk away so I had no worries, but I complained
    26        five or six times that I thought that it was wrong that
    27        women were left to make their own way home at 3 a.m. and
    28        other such times.  Some employees in fact had to get taxies
    29        and pay for them themselves.
    30
    31        If it was nearly pay day and crew members did not have any
    32        money left, they would have no choice but to walk home, and
    33        this occurred regularly.  In a few other stores, for
    34        example, Basildon, people used to get taxies paid for by
    35        McDonald's.  When I drew this inconsistency to the
    36        attention of management they told me that all stores
    37        outside Inner London did not give taxi fares.  I pointed
    38        out that Basildon was outside Inner London - the Floor
    39        Manager I was addressing just laughed.  I could not get a
    40        decent answer out of management and eventually management
    41        got very cross with me for complaining.
    42
    43        I threatened to write to Head Office and tell them about
    44        the taxi issue I knew that it was meant to be a rule that
    45        people were given their taxi fare where they had been
    46        working very late at night.  I was about to leave
    47        McDonald's at this stage.  I was told that if I wrote to
    48        Head Office the Store Managers could create problems for me
    49        after I left, when called upon to give references for a
    50        future job.  Once I had left, I decided that I was going to 
    51        write to Head Office about the taxi issue.  I did not do 
    52        because this case came up and I thought that this was a 
    53        much better way in which to express my complaints".  Do you
    54        just want to explain what "this case" was?
    55        A.  The case was McDonald's suing The Guardian and TICL.
    56
    57   Q.   "Staffing levels were calculated as a percentage of sales.
    58        The level of labour cost at my store could be, and very
    59        often was, as low as 12 per cent of sales.  I got this
    60        information from the Managers and I occasionally saw the

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