Day 131 - 06 Jun 95 - Page 50
1 MS. STEEL: Perhaps the staff should be paid "danger money" for
2 a more dangerous job.
3
4 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We have to establish it is dangerous first,
5 and that brings us back to the point I am trying to make,
6 that it surely has to be something you can compare
7 McDonald's with.
8
9 THE WITNESS: If I may say so, my Lord, that specific thinking
10 is something that was rooted out in industry many years
11 ago: you do not pay people "danger money"; you reduce the
12 danger. That is a very obvious statement.
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You take my point, surely, Mr. Morris? If
15 this leaflet had said that there is a greater incidence of
16 accidents at McDonald's than there is at the banking
17 industry, I do not suppose McDonald's for a moment would
18 think that that was a libel issue. It is too obvious to be
19 true, that it is bound to be so.
20
21 If you are trying to show that the incidence of accidents
22 (such as it may appear from the evidence which we have) is
23 high in McDonald's in relation to comparable work, then
24 I suggest you put the comparable work to Mr. Purslow and
25 see if he can help you. But it ought to be comparable
26 work.
27
28 MR. MORRIS: I think it is comparable to retailing.
29
30 MR. JUSTICE BELL: (To the witness) Is it comparable to
31 retailing?
32 A. In no way, my Lord. With retailing, you are not
33 actually preparing anything. All you are doing is taking
34 goods in and passing them on to a customer. The essence of
35 the food industry is, obviously, that you are preparing
36 food, which is why I compared it with the food
37 manufacturing industry where they do exactly the same
38 thing, but on a bigger scale.
39
40 MS. STEEL: Can I say, in terms of what is in the leaflet
41 itself, "Workers in catering do badly in terms of pay and
42 conditions", then in terms of what is available to the kind
43 of people who would be likely to get a job at McDonald's,
44 retailing is an ideal contrast, because that is
45 exactly -- and that was -----
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not want you to push at open doors, that
48 is all. You do not have to ask Mr. Purslow whether there
49 is going to be a greater rate of accidents in a restaurant
50 where, for instance, you have hot kitchen equipment, sharp
51 knives (although that does not apply to McDonald's) and wet
52 and greasy substances which may be dropped on the floor,
53 and where people are moving around all the time, compared
54 with either banking or someone standing, moderately mobile,
55 behind a counter, waiting for an enquiry from a customer.
56
57 If there is more to it than the obvious, such as a point
58 you want to make, then put that to Mr. Purslow.
59
60 MR. MORRIS: (To the witness) In terms of the sorts of jobs
