Day 303 - 19 Nov 96 - Page 31
1 someone resign". He said "I once witnessed a manager
2 randomly clock time from people's clock card reports just
3 to reduce labour". That is labour costs.
4
5 He stated that the illegalities and abuse of entitlements
6 to breaks and things like that were considered "good
7 manager practice", and complained that the store was
8 regularly understaffed. Pressure to achieve targets for
9 food yields, Mr. Logan told the court, resulted in the
10 occasional use of out-of-date buns and shake mixtures being
11 watered down. Workers were expected to hustle, including
12 to run while working. Machinery and electrics were not
13 properly repaired.
14
15 As we have heard in great detail, at one period essential
16 safety devices were removed from faulty electrical circuits
17 to ensure that food production and sales continued as
18 normal despite the grills being in a "dangerous
19 condition". And the removal of residual current devices
20 would be an offence by the Company which could lead to
21 legal action, as we have heard, with the prohibition notice
22 issued after Mark Hopkins was electrocuted, because it
23 would in itself lead to a risk of serious injury.
24
25 He pointed out how during busy periods in particular the
26 problems with the machinery often led to customer
27 complaints about raw and undercooked meat products; yet he
28 pointed out that the Company was able to find a substantial
29 amount of money, whether it was a quarter of a million or
30 £300,000, for a face lift for the lobby area, not the
31 kitchen. On two occasions he recalled how sewage came up
32 through the drains into the kitchen area and people had to
33 continue preparing and cooking food.
34
35 I think that, you know, when we listen to all the evidence
36 from -- when you compare the evidence from different
37 stores, a pattern clearly emerges which is hard to
38 comprehend in some ways without the central fundamental
39 thing that runs throughout, no doubt, McDonald's stores the
40 whole world over, which is the obsession with low wage
41 costs, and it relates also to food costs as well, because
42 why would McDonald's want to serve undercooked food.
43
44 It is not that they positively want to serve undercooked
45 food, but that the staff and the managers are under
46 pressure to cut costs to the bone, and therefore they
47 perceive they have no alternative but to be understaffed,
48 to cut corners in the procedures and the cooking practices
49 or whatever and no doubt it is all for the benefit of the
50 shareholders at the end of the day.
51
52 So again, you know, it is not a personal defect from any of
53 the witnesses that McDonald's have called to court. We are
54 trying to show, with our testimony, our evidence in this
55 part of the case, in fact the whole of the case but in this
56 part of the case in particular, how the problem is one of a
57 system at which money is the centre of what really counts
58 at McDonald's. And, of course, image to the customers.
59 That is really the two parts, that is what important to the
60 company.
