Day 203 - 12 Jan 96 - Page 53
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If I may say so, if, at the end of the day,
2 I disbelieved Mr. Coton that Mr. Skehel said he had been
3 doing it himself, that would not mean that I discard all
4 Mr. Coton's evidence, because one does not have to be in
5 these courts for very long to realise that witnesses can be
6 accurate about one thing and inaccurate about another. It
7 is not all black or all white, necessarily.
8
9 MR. MORRIS (To the witness): You said that you heard about this
10 -- this is a rap session, is that correct, or you think
11 -----
12 A. No, I have said I think I may have heard about it at
13 the rap session. I may not have heard about it at the rap
14 session. I may have heard it from a crew member on another
15 occasion.
16
17 Q. If crew members at a rap session say they do not believe
18 they are getting paid for the hours that they worked, would
19 that be an indication that this kind of practice might be
20 going on?
21 A. If a crew member said at a rap session that they had
22 not been paid for the hours that they had worked, I would
23 ask them for some more questions, such as, when did you
24 work? You know, what do you have to sort of support your
25 point of view? But, to be honest with you, that is not
26 something that you would deal with in the rap session. You
27 would deal with that outside of the rap session.
28
29 If the crew said at the rap session: "We are not being
30 paid for the hours we are working" and several crew said
31 it. I would say: "Why do you think that is the case?" and
32 then they would probably tell me why they thought it was
33 the case.
34
35 Q. Does this view by crew members, they are not being paid for
36 all the hours they have worked, is that something that
37 comes up quite a lot?
38 A. Sorry, on -- when?
39
40 Q. Is that something that comes up quite a lot, that kind of
41 view, that the workers at McDonald's say or believe that
42 they are not being paid for all the hours that they have
43 worked, or is that something that was so unusual that you
44 felt you had to make an investigation?
45 A. No. I think you have not got me straight here.
46 I think it is likely that a crew member had said to me:
47 "Hours have been docked from my pay", which is a serious
48 allegation which requires a serious conversation and would
49 not be dealt with within a rap session.
50
51 As to your first question, no, I do not believe it is
52 something which crops up at rap sessions, that particular
53 point about docking hours frequently. However, I think
54 that at every rap session, as the specific purpose of the
55 rap session is to address many issues, amongst those, if
56 the administration of payroll is to the satisfaction of the
57 crew, then it will come up and feature on every rap session
58 as being either good, or if there are some problems with
59 it.
60
