Day 310 - 04 Dec 96 - Page 16


     
     1        earlier in this discussion.  So, saying you pay badly for
     2        bad conditions is more serious than just saying you pay
     3        badly?
     4
     5   MR. RAMPTON:   I have always agreed with the indications
     6        your Lordship has given about that.  It must be so, that it
     7        is a much, much blacker picture.  Indeed, if one said the
     8        pay is quite decent but the conditions are absolutely
     9        awful, one can see the same much greyer picture emerging,
    10        as if you reversed them, in the way your Lordship did just
    11        now.
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.  Page 6.  Do you remember some time ago
    14        I was feeling for what the numbers of employees were,
    15        firstly, in this country and in the United States and
    16        elsewhere, if possible?
    17
    18   MR. RAMPTON:  I have forgotten to look it up.  Can your Lordship
    19        take it that it is 32,000, or was when that evidence was
    20        given, in the year when that evidence was given, in this
    21        country.  Worldwide, somebody gave a figure of about two
    22        and a half million.
    23
    24   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Were both those figures companies or
    25        subsidiaries as opposed to franchisees and partners?
    26
    27   MR. RAMPTON:  The English, or the British, figure was, I think,
    28        company restaurants.  But that may not make a lot of
    29        difference, since there are many fewer franchised
    30        restaurants proportionally.  But it will make some
    31        difference.
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Not as much as elsewhere, certainly not as
    34        much as the United States.
    35
    36   MR. RAMPTON:   No.  What I will get Mr. Atkinson to do --
    37        obviously, we will do it before the end of term -- we will
    38        get the references for those and what the precise figures
    39        are.  I am sorry, I know your Lordship said it before and I
    40        forgot.  If one assumes in this country, for example, that
    41        it is 32,000 in any one year, one goes back 22 years or
    42        something, one is looking at an awful lot of ex-employees,
    43        particularly given the age breakdown of the workforce and
    44        the fact that many of them do not even stay for a year.
    45
    46   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   It was the figure at any given time, was it
    47        not?  It was not, "We have employed 32,000 in the course of
    48        the last year".
    49
    50   MR. RAMPTON:   No.  It may have been Mr. Preston, the question 
    51        may have been, "How many employees have you got?"  It was a 
    52        point in time answer, I think. 
    53
    54   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   On page 15, in paragraph 5, what difficulty
    55        would there be in just following the letter of the
    56        regulations?
    57
    58   MR. RAMPTON:   Only a practical difficulty -- I do not mean
    59        there is any difficulty in principle -- only a practical
    60        difficulty in the days before the waste system was fully

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