Day 150 - 07 Jul 95 - Page 26


     
     1        full-timers had sufficient hours to meet their commitments.
     2
     3   Q.   Are you aware of situations where employees either now or
     4        at any time in your period as a Manager or even crew, if
     5        appropriate, and particularly at Leicester, Colchester,
     6        back in the 1980s, were working 50 hours or more a week?
     7        A.  No.
     8
     9   Q.   If that were happening -- obviously, you are saying, as far
    10        as you personally are aware, you do not know of any
    11        examples -- whether often or rarely or whatever, then what
    12        is your reaction to that?
    13        A.  OK.  It would not happen, because of the way the system
    14        works and because I am involved with the restaurant
    15        closely, part of my responsibility is to anticipate in this
    16        case staffing requirements of the restaurant.  So, to give
    17        you that Clacton example where we might have gone from 30
    18        or 40 on the pay role to, perhaps, 90 or whatever it was in
    19        those days requires a lot of planning.  If we got to the
    20        stage -- and maybe this is the way I used to tell the
    21        Managers -- but if you got to the stage whereby people were
    22        having to work more and more hours, that should be a very
    23        clear indication that you need more people on the payroll.
    24
    25   Q.   Can I get this straight?  If the scheduling is not working,
    26        might it rarely happen that somebody was working 50 hours
    27        or more if the scheduling has failed?
    28        A.  If it has failed, sure.
    29
    30   Q.   Thank you.  It is a bad thing, is it, that somebody should
    31        be working that number of hours?
    32        A.  Absolutely.
    33
    34   Q.   Why is it a bad thing?
    35        A.  Let me take the business side of it, first of all.  If
    36        somebody is working too many hours, then it is my
    37        experience as an individual, if you like, that if you go on
    38        too long you become tired, you become inefficient and I can
    39        tell you that in terms of that respect, if I had people on
    40        the front counter of the dining area, then that is going to
    41        be reflected in the level of service.  I know as a
    42        consumer, going into a restaurant or into anywhere, that
    43        you do not want to see sullen faces and tired people.  So,
    44        in that respect it does not work out.
    45
    46   MR. ATKINSON:  My Lord, I am in the middle of the section on
    47        hours of work.  I have a fair number of questions to go.
    48
    49   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, we will take the five-minute break.
    50 
    51                       (Short Adjournment) 
    52 
    53   MR. ATKINSON:  Mr. Stanton, I am in the middle of a section on
    54        hours of work.  Does it happen that people come into the
    55        store one day and they think they are going to work until X
    56        hour, and the Manager comes along and says:  "I am sorry,
    57        but you are going to have to work to a later hour, to a
    58        later Y hour.  Whatever you think about that does not
    59        matter, you are going to work until that hour, come what
    60        may, because there is some emergency has come up or

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