Day 181 - 01 Nov 95 - Page 37
1 Q. Single national hourly rate?
2 A. -- for the first 39 hours.
3
4 Q. In that industry?
5 A. In that industry, indeed; and a single overtime rate
6 after 39 hours; and virtually nothing else except, in
7 regards to the catering industry, a small provision on
8 board and lodging for the licensed residential council.
9
10 MR. RAMPTON: So, by law, what happened was that you got no
11 benefit from living, or in respect of the expense of living
12 and working in London, for example, and you got no
13 protection if you were under 21; is that right?
14 A. Those are both right, although just a small point here,
15 that the rate that was adopted, the national rate, was, I
16 believe, the higher of the two, whether it was the London
17 or out of London.
18
19 Q. So maybe the provinces benefited?
20 A. The provinces benefited; and there was a certain amount
21 of concern over that.
22
23 Q. Now, health and safety -- and this will not take very long,
24 Mr. Pearson. You mentioned the Health and Safety Executive
25 report which the Defendants gave you to read -- or maybe
26 you read it independently, I do not know -- and you said a
27 moment ago, which is why I stopped you, "when the Health
28 and Safety Executive went in". You are not proposing that
29 McDonald's were compelled by the HSE to open their doors to
30 it, are you?
31 A. I have not read the terms of reference of the
32 Executive's report, so I could not answer that.
33
34 Q. No. So you are not making -----
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I had missed that sophistication -----
37
38 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I had thought it had been suggested, or
39 Mr. Pearson had assumed, that this was something which
40 McDonald's had been compelled to subject themselves to;
41 and, if it was so, of course I was going to correct him.
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
44
45 THE WITNESS: I am not able to answer that.
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, I have heard positive evidence on
48 that.
49
50 MR. RAMPTON: Yes. I am not going to go back to the evidence
51 which your Lordship has heard, as your Lordship already had
52 noticed.
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There is no need to look puzzled, Mr. Morris.
55 It was not a dawn raid; it was all very much arranged by
56 consent, carefully arranged in advance between the
57 investigation unit at the HSE and McDonald's, and they
58 chose McDonald's as what they thought might be a very
59 helpful specimen.
60
