Day 150 - 07 Jul 95 - Page 63
1 A. It never happened.
2
3 Q. What about if there was only one or two people that said,
4 "Oh well, OK, we are prepared to stay"?
5 A. It never happened. It is a store which was very proud
6 of its record as a business and, if anything, I think we
7 probably had too many people; we never had a situation
8 where nobody wanted to do it or only one or two did.
9
10 Q. That shift is on the premium rate, is that right?
11 A. That is right.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: How close were Colchester and Clacton to
14 other stores? Where was the next store going south or
15 north or east or west rather?
16 A. Within the Midlands region, I think the next nearest
17 one would have been Norwich.
18
19 Q. Was there one in Chelmsford?
20 A. I am not too sure; there may well have been. Again, it
21 is outside my area.
22
23 Q. Once you got into South Essex, that would be London and the
24 South East?
25 A. That was handled outside of a London office, that is
26 right. So the nearest store within the Midlands region, if
27 I recall, was probably Norwich; then up to Great Yarmouth
28 and Lowestoft really. Then up towards North East Anglia.
29
30 Q. You were really a little enclave all of your own,
31 geographically, were you not?
32 A. It was a remote region, so to speak; certainly.
33
34 MS. STEEL: In your second statement, which should be behind
35 that; I do not know whether there is a separate divider or
36 not; on page 5 of that statement; I have only got page
37 numbers at the top, not the bundle page numbers. You have
38 a section about turnover?
39 A. Right.
40
41 Q. You mention about students from Leicester University and
42 Leicester Polytechnic. Then you go on to say that you had
43 a number of part-time women with children who you treated
44 as continuously employed?
45 A. Right.
46
47 Q. Even if, for example, they took a week or 10 days' leave
48 for family reasons.
49 A. Right.
50
51 Q. In such cases they were not, therefore, classified as
52 leavers. You mentioned about -- would that be the same
53 situation for the students that you were talking about that
54 went up, were working in the Leicester store and then took
55 their files with them up to Glasgow?
56 A. Right. No, I mean, the -- because there was going to
57 be a significant period between them leaving and rejoining
58 us, then there was -- we just simply reactive them on to
59 the payroll and started them back again. But with someone
60 such as the part-time women that we employed with, perhaps,
