Day 152 - 11 Jul 95 - Page 76
1 enough people to work those hours.
2
3 Q. You never had any problems doing any scheduling and getting
4 the people in when you wanted them ever; never had a
5 problem with people not turning up; never had a problem
6 with ---
7 A. There may have been ------
8
9 Q. -- people needing to go home early, they needed to be
10 covered; never had a problem with extra work on that you
11 did not expect? Surely, you had all those problems, yes?
12 A. There may have been odd, isolated incidents where one
13 or may be two of the things occurred that you have
14 mentioned, but we had sufficient crew in numbers and depth
15 to cover for any instance of that nature. So, for
16 instance, if somebody rang in sick, then there was a number
17 of people would be willing to come in and work that shift
18 who were not under 18 if it necessitated working them past
19 a specific time.
20
21 Q. So a lot of people that were on your books were just
22 hanging around waiting for a phone call, were they, to fill
23 in whatever time was suitable for McDonald's?
24 A. No, that was not the case. We actually operated a
25 substitutes list of people who wanted to work extra hours,
26 should the need be.
27
28 Q. What are you saying? Are you saying that where there was a
29 need for people to work extra hours ---
30 A. I did not say -----
31
32 Q. -- you had to concentrate on the over 18s which would have
33 limited the number of people you had to choose from? Is
34 that correct? That would have limited your choices, yes?
35 A. Only in the specific hours you have mentioned which is
36 a very small percentage of the overall hours during which
37 we operate. You are only talking about the hours past
38 10 o'clock for under 18 females and past 12 o'clock for
39 over 18 males. So, that is possibly five to 10 per cent of
40 the total operating hours during which we work.
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But they are at the end of shifts which
43 provide more than five per cent of the hours, I think what
44 is being put to you; you have this last shift where people
45 work on to close ---
46 A. Yes.
47
48 Q. -- or could well do; if you take something in the range of
49 30 to 50 per cent, it means two out of every five of the
50 people on your payroll, part-time and full-time, are under
51 18, and if you have got to ring round for someone to help
52 two out of five under 18, what is being put to you, it is
53 just going to be a fact of life with two out of five under
54 18, you are going to run into a bit of a problem, and be
55 tempted to let the 17 year old work on a bit longer. That
56 is what is being put to you.
57 A. OK. In the first instance, the chances of actually
58 having to ring somebody around on an average week would
59 probably -- maybe you would have to do it once, maybe
60 twice, maybe three times, during the whole week on a bad
