Day 141 - 23 Jun 95 - Page 21
1 should be permitted to do what they want to do, and that is
2 what they do. There is no hard and fast rule; you use
3 common sense when your employees ask you for something or
4 do something.
5
6 Q. When six employees all want to work -- all right, to give
7 you an example: at that time of six o'clock, did you see,
8 for example, things such as six employees all working on
9 the same grill, flipping burgers?
10 A. There were more people on the floor than we needed, if
11 that is your question.
12
13 Q. About five times as many, would you say, 10 times as many?
14 A. There was a lot, there is no question.
15
16 Q. How many times, would you say, from what a normal
17 complement would be?
18 A. Maybe four or five times.
19
20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I would like you to explain to me,
21 Mr. Morris, is just what you are criticising in this.
22 I see, on the one hand, that it has to be, as it were, as
23 if it is a normal working day. But equally well, I can see
24 that if a store -- just to take some other figures -- has
25 100 people on the payroll that normally work at a store at
26 any given time and 100 all want a say, whether it is for
27 the union or against the union, I would have thought it was
28 a bit difficult for the owner/operator to turn away,
29 because that may be interpreted as saying: "You cannot
30 have a vote in it." So, if that is a complete
31 misunderstanding, I need to come along to your train of
32 thought and understand what you are criticising.
33
34 MR. MORRIS: (To the witness) But the other staff that had been
35 taken on for the stores that had not been constructed yet
36 also were there?
37 A. You are saying something -----
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What is being put to you, bearing in mind
40 what I have said might be one thing, that if you have 100
41 people on the payroll, that they are on the payroll for
42 that restaurant, the purpose is they should work at that
43 restaurant. Whether or not there is any merit in what
44 I have just put to Mr. Morris, he is saying: "Ah, but in
45 addition to the people who were hired to work at that
46 restaurant, there were people who were hired to work at
47 another restaurant and really had no business being there
48 at all on voting day."
49 A. If you will, my Lord, there had been no determination
50 of who would be staying or who would be leaving that
51 restaurant to go to an additional restaurant. They were
52 all employees of that restaurant, not of any other
53 restaurant.
54
55 Q. Although it was anticipated that some of them would move on
56 to new restaurants?
57 A. Absolutely, my Lord. If I might, my Lord, the Labour
58 Board was advised of that and they felt that that did not
59 matter, that as long as they are employees of that
60 restaurant, that is the issue of who should be there --
