Day 310 - 04 Dec 96 - Page 18
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I have a difficulty with at the moment
2 is how it can be said that the overtime provision is dealt
3 with indirectly and fairly by the matter at 2B, which is at
4 the top of page 15 of your submissions.
5
6 MR. RAMPTON: The performance related pay rise.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is early and regular performance related
9 pay rises. Is it not fair, if this a genuine pay for
10 performance system, to get your extra pence per hour if you
11 have done well and to get your overtime? I mean, one of
12 the thrusts of the Defendants' case is that it is fair, as
13 one of your witnesses said, to be paid an overtime rate,
14 and if you do not you are cadging back part of your
15 performance related pay of which you are so proud. Is that
16 not so?
17
18 MR. RAMPTON: I do not see that that is right. If the employee
19 has a statutory entitlement, then he has a right under the
20 law to get his statutory entitlement. If he is getting
21 that anyway, and perhaps a bit more besides, I do not see
22 that that is unfair, no. I quite agree it could have been
23 more generous.
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Suppose I were to agree with your witness
26 that it is fair to pay a bit over the odds after your 39
27 hours -- it does not matter whether it is 39 hours in one
28 industry and 42 in another and 35 in another, whatever your
29 basic week is -- once you go beyond it you get a higher
30 rate of pay? That is fair.
31
32 MR. RAMPTON: I am quite -- what is the word -- I am quite
33 unfazed by this. I have conceded in the course of this
34 document the one area, and this is it, where I think that
35 McDonald's pre-1986 are vulnerable to criticism. I have
36 said so. I have said that it is, or would be, something of
37 a black mark if they had not had those transactions or
38 exchanges with the Wages Inspectorate. That may not cure
39 the problem, because the fact would remain that there would
40 have been people, as one can see if one looks at
41 Mr. Alimi's calculations, who were essentially short
42 changed not because McDonald's were trying to cheat them,
43 or anything like that, but simply because they did not get
44 what they should have had.
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is not just a question of legality, is
47 it? I have to form a view on whether the pay is bad and
48 whether the conditions are bad, regardless of what the
49 legal minimum are.
50
51 MR. RAMPTON: Certainly. If your Lordship agrees with the
52 witness who said he thinks he ought to get more when he has
53 worked more than 39 hours a week, that is a respect in
54 which -- but the only respect in which -- it could be said
55 not necessarily that McDonald's paid badly, but that it is
56 not as good as it might be. To use your Lordship's word,
57 it might be fairer if they got both.
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Then the top of page 17, I do not know
60 whether I ever heard -- if I did I have forgotten -- what
