Day 180 - 31 Oct 95 - Page 53
1 MS. STEEL: You mean because they said the overtime rate did not
2 apply?
3
4 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, because they were not applying an
5 overtime rate?
6 A. Because they were not applying any overtime, they were
7 not applying statute, because they were not applying
8 statutory overtime provisions, then, you know, any evidence
9 of any kind, any evidence of long hours, would suggest, you
10 know, a kind of willy-nilly, I mean, whatever, by accident
11 or even just simply leave it at by accident, statutory
12 provisions were not being enforced. This would be a kind
13 of prima facie conclusion to arrive at, and the survey
14 methods of wages inspectors might well not ever have
15 identified this problem and, indeed, you know, from a trade
16 union perspective we were always concerned about the
17 under-resourcing of the Inspectorate and that this kind of
18 situation may prevail.
19
20 My only word of caution I would like to make from this
21 witness box in terms of what has just gone before is simply
22 that there may be buried in all the evidence that has gone
23 before, it may be that this point has been covered by the
24 Company. It may be that you have already received evidence
25 that the wages inspectors have been through the books,
26 etcetera.
27
28 What I am trying to do is to say that, as a Wages Council
29 member, I was not aware of concerns raised by the
30 Inspectorate in the mid-80s on this issue, and what I see
31 now, what I see here, raises serious doubt in my mind as to
32 whether remuneration policies met with statute, and of the
33 many offences, of the various offences, identified under
34 the Wages Act, failure to display Wages Council notices,
35 failure to keep adequate records, failure to pay the
36 appropriate remuneration were all offences punishable by
37 fine or imprisonment. I only say that to indicate the
38 seriousness with which Parliament once viewed these
39 matters. It certainly did in the mid 80s when these
40 matters were being considered.
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If you had got someone who is, essentially,
43 working full-time, but the definition of full-time is that
44 they normally work somewhere between 35 and 39 hours a
45 week, but those hours can be allocated throughout the week,
46 let us suppose it is normally five shifts on five days a
47 week, but the five days may vary, how do you work out what
48 would normally be a rest day?
49 A. That is a very good question, and it is the kind of
50 bedevilling question that Wages Inspectors would have to
51 try to resolve.
52
53 Q. So it can sometimes be difficult to establish what might
54 qualify as a rest day and what might not?
55 A. What they would do, yes, it would be difficult. What
56 an inspector would do, their practice was to average out
57 over a 13 week period the usual practice (and I should add
58 that in the early to mid 80s, which is, effectively, the
59 period under which, I suppose, in the end this action is
60 taken, it was going on then), if you like, the flexing of
