Day 301 - 15 Nov 96 - Page 32

     
     1        result-----
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     3   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I cannot see the company responsible for
     4        that, it was a bizarre criminal offence.
     5
     6   MS. STEEL:   I don't think they were responsible for the hoax,
     7        but they were responsible for the pressure that people were
     8        under.
     9
    10   MR JUSTICE BELL:  Maybe, but I don't think you can blame
    11        something like that on pressure of work.  It is just a
    12        thoroughly criminal aberration of the person concerned.  It
    13        is not to detract from the strength of your case about
    14        pressure in other respects.  But, quite frankly, I think
    15        someone who does something like that, I cannot say that it
    16        is in any way a logical or foreseeable reaction to
    17        pressure, however great.
    18
    19   MR. MORRIS:   Moving on to general conditions, we showed
    20        Mr. Nicholson the 'one every mile' documentary which was
         filmed with McDonald's permission inside two London stores
    22        and portrayed the reality of the high pressure of working
    23        conditions for crew members.  Mr. Nicholson agreed the
    24        conditions shown were "typical of high volume stores".
    25        That is day 119, page 12, line 37.  Crew were filmed
    26        complaining about the pay, about pay rises being delayed.
    27        Page 15, line 48.  About hours of work being underrecorded,
    28        that was page 15, line 16, and that the speed of work "does
    29        your head in", that is what someone said on the film.
    30        Commenting on the fact that there was a preponderance in
    31        the film of managers with an ex-military background.
    32        Mr. Nicholson said such people bring "a sense of
    33        discipline" to McDonald's stores, and that was on page 17,
    34        line 34 of that day.
    35
    36        There was a great deal of fuss initially from the
    37        Plaintiffs about this film being outrageous, these
    38        conditions are just totally exaggerated.  They are working
    39        too fast and the long and short of it was, especially
    40        following Mr. Nicholson's admission that the commissions
         were typical of high volume stores, and then the
    42        manageress, Miss Antenno, giving evidence and also, of
    43        course, the researcher of the film gave evidence for us.
    44        At the end of the day, it turns out that McDonald's were
    45        actually quite happy with the film as an accurate portrayal
    46        -- an accurate portrayal, we would say, of the high
    47        pressured corner cutting, low paid work environment and
    48        authoritarian management.
    49
    50        Turnover.  In March 1990, the company's annualised turnover
    51        in the UK was 196.5 percent per year.  Day 118, page 9,
    52        line 13.  We have heard how in the USA it was roughly the
    53        same around that time, and even greater in the previous
    54        couple of years.  We will dig out those figures a bit later
    55        on.
    56
    57        The Corporation's confidential operations manual was
    58        quoted.  "Staffing and retention are closely related
    59        issues."  Now that is quite an important point.  Closely
    60        related.  The worse the staffing levels, we say, the more