Day 130 - 26 May 95 - Page 59
1 Q. You can go on from there to discuss whether that works or
2 not, but that is the system, it seems to me, apart from
3 anything which your safety circles may bring in addition,
4 or rap session may, when they are held, bring in addition?
5 A. Yes.
6
7 Q. But if things are working well the manager should respond
8 in an appropriate way to something like that?
9 A. They should do, yes, and one of the requirements now is
10 also to have a hazard identification scheme in the
11 restaurant, so that they could actually write things down,
12 as well as going to see the managers, and that is part of
13 what is discussed at safety circles as well.
14
15 MR. MORRIS: In the course of your studies on health and safety
16 matters regarding employees, did you look at what happens
17 in other industries and in other workplaces with different
18 management systems, or different situations, so you could
19 compare McDonald's with other people?
20 A. I suppose one of the criticisms you could level at me
21 is my experience does not extend outside of McDonald's, but
22 that is one of reasons we use people like Chris, who has
23 lot wider experience, and can put what we are doing into
24 perspective. I have no reason to think that what we are
25 doing is not amongst the best practice there is,
26 particularly it falls in line with what is written in the
27 Successful Health and Safety Management document.
28
29 Q. So what you are saying is you do not know what happens in
30 other industries, or even in other companies in the
31 catering industry.
32 A. My experience is only inside McDonald's. I have never
33 worked for a company other than McDonald's, so my
34 experience is very limited to McDonald's, but I do have
35 Operations experience within the Company, and I know what
36 happens in practice in our restaurants.
37
38 Q. But whether you have a responsible management or not, and
39 certainly if you did not, it would benefit employees'
40 safety if they had their own independent, you could call it
41 power, or ability to stop work or to have their own safety
42 committee or whatever, whether it was through a union or
43 not, it would benefit them, would it not?
44 A. (A) I have no experience and (B) anything that
45 I answered would be purely hypothetical.
46
47 Q. You talked about risk management, that is not just about
48 which equipment is used and procedures and things like
49 that; it is also about staffing levels, is it not?
50 A. It depends on the specific circumstances. Do you have
51 a particular example in mind?
52
53 Q. Under-staffing would be something you would want ----
54
55 MR. RAMPTON: Mr. Morris repeatedly interrupts the witness
56 before she has finished the answer. Apart from anything
57 else, it is extremely -----
58
59 MR. MORRIS: I thought you were asking for help.
60
