Day 130 - 26 May 95 - Page 63


     
     1        that kind of matter that might affect the whole Company?
     2        A.  I have not asked the specific question, but part of the
     3        information that is collated in the investigation is what
     4        people were doing, what time of the day it was, was it busy
     5        in the restaurant.  You know, busy is a relative thing.  A
     6        £200 per hour could be busy with five crew on, whereas
     7        £1,000 per hour would be quiet if you have 30 crew on, so
     8        it is very relative.
     9
    10   Q.   Have you investigated the practice of having people on
    11        tills compete with each other to serve the most customers
    12        in the shortest possible time to increase their till costs
    13        in order to get some kind of badge or to be Till Person of
    14        the Week, or whatever, have you investigated that and its
    15        potential impact on safety?
    16        A.  Well, I certainly know back to my own Store Manager
    17        days that we used to have competitions between people on
    18        the till.
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Just pause a moment.  I think it is apparent
    21        from what you have said so far that you have not done any
    22        kind of survey to see whether more accidents occur at busy
    23        times like lunch times?
    24        A.  We have looked in terms of time of day, but we have not
    25        related it to volume of business.
    26
    27   Q.   Nor, as I would therefore have anticipated, have you done
    28        any enquiry to see whether there may be more accidents
    29        during a competition period?
    30        A.  No, we have not gone and specifically looked.  As far
    31        as I know, as I said before, it has not come out of any
    32        particular accident investigation.  Maybe it is something
    33        we should go away and look at.
    34
    35   MR. MORRIS:  I would have thought ----
    36        A.  Even if it is just to prove, you know, there is not a
    37        higher risk.
    38
    39   Q.   Have you issued any memos or written any reports saying
    40        that, in the intersts of safety, McDonald's employees
    41        should work more slowly?
    42        A.  Is that the end of your question?
    43
    44   Q.   Yes.
    45        A.  No.
    46
    47   Q.   Why is that funny?
    48        A.  Why is it funny?  Working more slowly can actually be
    49        more dangerous than working what is considered to be a
    50        normal rate of doing things.  In fact, we have monitored 
    51        the time of day when accidents happen and the amount of 
    52        information we get varies from time to time, but 
    53        occasionally it looks like more accidents happen when the
    54        stores are really quiet.
    55
    56   Q.   It does not relate to staffing levels because there may
    57        only be a quarter of the staff at those times; you would
    58        have to actually analyse what the staffing was first and
    59        whether your stores on a national basis were generally
    60        under-staffing the stores for the work they are expected to

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