Day 124 - 10 May 95 - Page 20
1 A. They were asked not it receive tips.
2
3 Q. But if they did get tips, what was the requirement?
4 A. Well, in some cases they kept the tips; some of the
5 kids kept the tips, and in other cases some of the kids
6 turned in the tips.
7
8 Q. Were they expected to turn in the tips?
9 A. But our direction was to not receive tips. Tips were
10 unnecessary.
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think another way of putting what
13 Mr. Morris is putting is, suppose a crew member did accept
14 a tip, did not voluntarily turn it in, and it came to the
15 notice of someone higher up that they had kept a nickel or
16 something like that, did the Company have a policy on what
17 to do then?
18 A. To be perfectly frank, my experience was the employees
19 kept the tips. They were told not to receive the tips. If
20 they received them they kept it. They were asked if they
21 did receive it to put it in the till, but I never, from
22 personal experience, asked them to, you know, give it to
23 the Company. Now, did that occur? Of course it did.
24
25 MR. MORRIS: So some people might have been disciplined for
26 breaking Company policy?
27 A. That is probably true, some people might have been.
28 But I think, as McDonald's became a little more widely
29 known, the giving of tips was minimal. We are really
30 talking about an issue from my perspective that was,
31 amounted to, was an inconsequence amount. If you waited
32 on, in a typical restaurant, 1500 customers if two or three
33 customers gave a tip, that was a lot. So -----
34
35 Q. What I am saying, the requirement was they should have put
36 the money in the till?
37 A. That is right. During the transition period of
38 car-hops and table-service restaurants, you know, there was
39 a propensity to want to give tips, but I would say that the
40 number of customers that did that dropped off dramatically
41 as more and more McDonald's type establishments were
42 developed.
43
44 Q. So the Company policy was, effectively, not only paying low
45 wages or minimum wages, but to prevent staff from
46 supplementing their low income with the traditional
47 tipping, and, on top of that, the policy was they should
48 put it into the till so the Company made the addition,
49 rather than the staff who had earned it?
50 A. That is a real stretch, Mr. Morris.
51
52 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is just one way of expressing it. It is
53 comment really.
54
55 MR. MORRIS: You can deny it.
56
57 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is the way you can put it to me.
58
59 THE WITNESS: At the time, you know, I am speaking to you of my
60 first-hand knowledge of the policy on tipping, so when
