Day 102 - 13 Mar 95 - Page 27


     
     1        amount of work that catching teams do.  This amount of work
     2        is arrived at, agreed at, by the people doing the job.
     3        I do not specifically get into the details of that myself.
     4
     5   Q.   You said when you were giving evidence-in-chief that the
     6        people doing the catching used to be under pressure of
     7        time, but that now, the way that the work-load is designed,
     8        there is no reason for excessive speed to be used to
     9        complete the operation.  How has the work-load design
    10        changed?
    11        A.  The requirement now is to do the job in an eight hour
    12        day.  In other words, it is not piecework related.  The
    13        specific amount of work that has to be completed in an
    14        eight hour day, there is no particular benefit from rushing
    15        that work, and there is nothing to be gained by trying to
    16        do more work than allocated in that particular time.
    17
    18   Q.   When did piecework stop?
    19        A.  I think this was stopped a few years ago; I do not know
    20        exactly when.
    21
    22   Q.   Was that around the same time you switched to contract
    23        catching?
    24        A.  No, it was before then.
    25
    26   Q.   It was before that.  You said that the specific amount of
    27        work that has to be completed in an eight hour day, and
    28        there is no particular benefit from rushing that work, but
    29        you do not know what the specific amount of work is that
    30        has to be done in that eight hour period?
    31        A.  No, I could make enquiries and find out exactly how
    32        many loads and so on have to be completed in that time.
    33
    34   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  When you were talking of a load, what do you
    35        mean by that, on the flat bed lorry and trailer?
    36        A.  Yes, a load is 4,000 to 6,000 birds, and the amount of
    37        work done in a day or a shift will depend enormously on how
    38        far the people have to travel.  I mean, if a farm is 10
    39        minutes down the road they can obviously do more loading
    40        than if it is two hours down the road.
    41
    42   Q.   That is included in their eight hours?
    43        A.  Yes, it is all included.  So, the actual work volume is
    44        designed according to the geographical requirements.
    45
    46   MS. STEEL:   Are you in a position to be able to give us an
    47        average of the number of loads if the farms are within a
    48        few miles of the plant?
    49        A.  No, I do not have that detail.
    50 
    51   MR. MORRIS:  Just a couple of questions:  When you said the 
    52        piecework system ended a few years ago, are we talking 
    53        about early 90s or something like that?
    54        A.  I should think it was probably three or four years ago,
    55        yes.
    56
    57   Q.   When you said that you are below the industry level in
    58        terms of, I presume it is, the amount of birds -- I do not
    59        know, could you just explain -----
    60

Prev Next Index