Day 195 - 04 Dec 95 - Page 71


     
     1        wrote that statement?
     2        A.  I do not think so, no.
     3
     4   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  If I may go back while Mr. Morris is just
     5        pausing to where you were asked about 30th March where you
     6        have 3.45 to 12.50.  When you said that you would not call
     7        the 12.50 close reasonable, you should have been entitled
     8        to a break and food allowance for an eight-hour shift?
     9        A.  Yes.
    10
    11   Q.   What is your complaint about the 12.50 because if the close
    12        should normally finish at 12 midnight, the restaurant
    13        having closed at 11, then you would be entitled to your
    14        break and free food for the eight hours you have done by
    15        then?
    16        A.  Generally, on normal closes we never had a break after
    17        the closure of the store.  So we worked right through after
    18        our first break, which was usually before 6 o'clock.  We
    19        worked right through until the close was actually shut and
    20        locked and went home.  We never had a break.
    21
    22   Q.   I understand that you might complain about that, but
    23        I wondered whether there was something special about you
    24        saying that you should have been entitled to a break and a
    25        food allowance for an eight-hour shift because you were
    26        going to have an eight-hour shift even if you finished at
    27        midnight?
    28        A.  What I am saying is that 4 o'clock till 12 o'clock
    29        constitutes an eight-hour shift.  Then for the extra 50
    30        minutes that I did I was not actually allowed a break or an
    31        extension of my break or food allowance.  So when I took
    32        the break, or anybody in that position took a break, the
    33        length of the break was calculated on the basis of an
    34        eight-hour shift; not eight hours and 50 minutes.  Also the
    35        food allowance was calculated on the same basis, so that,
    36        in effect, they were calculating that not for eight hours
    37        and 50 minutes, but eight hours.
    38
    39   MR. MORRIS:  Just relating to that last question.  If you
    40        finished, as you said, regularly at 3 or 4 in the morning,
    41        did you get a break?
    42        A.  Depending on what Manager was on the shift we would
    43        have got, and whether he or she felt like a break.  We were
    44        not entitled to it, that is what we were told.  But if a
    45        Manager happened to be feeling generous and giving us a
    46        break, he would have made sure that Mark Davies was not
    47        around or he would have asked us not to mention it to Mark
    48        because he would not approve.
    49
    50   MS. STEEL:   You may not want to say anything more, but when 
    51        Mr. Rampton was asking you about a particular week in your 
    52        diary you said twice that it was an untypical week.  You 
    53        were interrupted and I do not know whether there was
    54        anything more you wanted to say about that?
    55        A.  It was an untypical week.  So far as that particular
    56        week Mr. Rampton was mentioning, I was not living in
    57        Colchester, because my parents in law America were looking
    58        after the place basically outside Colchester.  So I asked
    59        them not to put me on closes.
    60

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