Day 188 - 15 Nov 95 - Page 26


     
     1        material.  So if you rushed around, and maybe the floor had
     2        got wet or something, then there is the potential for
     3        people to slip and slide.  I never actually saw anybody
     4        slide while I was working at the stores but, quite clearly,
     5        it seems to me that that potential is there if there is
     6        that kind of pressure to make people rush around; the
     7        potential is there.
     8
     9   Q.   "At the Croydon store" -- I will just carry on reading from
    10        your statement -- "whilst working again" -- is that where
    11        I was up to?
    12        A.  Yes.
    13
    14   Q.  "At the Croydon store whilst working, again during the
    15        lunchtime period, a tray of buns was dropped by a fellow
    16        team member.  The buns were retrieved from the floor and
    17        quickly used.
    18
    19        "Although these were specific examples of poor quality
    20        food, there was a general approach which belies the
    21        McDonald's boast tender loving care and quality service
    22        excellence (QSC).  At the height of the rush, meat patties
    23        often crumbled or broke into pieces.  They were stuck
    24        together by being sandwiched in the bun.  Buns often got
    25        stuck in the toaster and had to be poked out.  The workers
    26        would burn their fingers and hands doing this.  If the buns
    27        were not too badly crumbled, they were then passed on to
    28        the dresser for use."
    29
    30        Almaz Anteneh said in the witness box -- she was the Store
    31        Manager at the time, I believe -- that there was a spatula
    32        available to get the buns out of the toaster.  What do you
    33        remember about that?
    34        A.  I think there was a thing that you poked the bun, but
    35        sometimes the bun would go to go the back, so you would
    36        have to, you know, dig through with the spatula or the
    37        poker, whatever it was, to try and get the buns out.  It is
    38        a kind of -- I do not think I am suggesting for one moment
    39        that people shove their hands into the toaster; it was just
    40        that in doing this action you could just catch your hand or
    41        your wrist on the equipment.  So I do not think it is
    42        actually having to put their hand into the toaster to get a
    43        bun out, but they were having to poke around and jiggle
    44        around and, in doing that, you could catch your hand there
    45        and burn it.
    46
    47   Q.   So, sometimes the hand would go sort of slightly partially
    48        into -----
    49
    50   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No, no.  She has given her evidence. 
    51 
    52   MR. MORRIS:  It is just that she has given hand signals. 
    53
    54   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I have understood what she said.
    55
    56   MR. MORRIS:  (To the witness):  If your hands got burned, how
    57        would they get burned -- just to clarify that?
    58        A.  By touching against the toaster machine, the toaster --
    59        whatever it is called.
    60

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