Day 144 - 28 Jun 95 - Page 48
1 but they would know that generally within that hour span at
2 some point they are going to have their break, but the
3 discretion I would have is if some things happen that I did
4 not contemplate in my plan, I had some flexibility on when
5 to relieve them and to assign them.
6
7 Q. What about the mid shift break of, say, half an hour, how
8 precisely is that fixed, if at all?
9 A. Again, it would be a rough calculation. You want to do
10 it at a time when it would appear, depending upon the
11 number of hours someone has worked, you would really like
12 to break up their time period, and also do it during a
13 reasonable period of time in relationship to the normal
14 lunch or dinner, or that kind of thing.
15
16 So, you are taking into consideration a variety of things,
17 the business, but also the interests of the employees to
18 have a break during a certain portion of their day.
19
20 MS. STEEL: So you have a useless question in here, Mr. Stein,
21 because if the staff do not know when their breaks are due,
22 then the 65 per cent who supposedly have agreed to this may
23 have got it completely wrong?
24 A. They know that there is a time span in which a break
25 will be given -- they should know; they do not always
26 remember -- and you are dealing with something here that I
27 do not think the crew crystallizes on as much as you are
28 crystallizing on. What it says is they are not totally
29 certain, sure, they may not be totally certain, but we are
30 trying to get an indication of whether or not how we
31 implement the break policy is in accordance with what our
32 policies are, and what our people think about it.
33
34 If it scores unusually low, then, in fact, the Manager
35 would have that as a priority and look into how they are
36 doing it and work with the crew to improve, if that needed
37 to be proved upon.
38
39 Q. They may have continually got short breaks since they
40 started and so assumed that it is normal practice?
41 A. Oh, come on! We are making assumptions upon
42 assumptions upon assumptions. I have tried to explain it
43 as well as I can.
44
45 Q. The point is, Mr. Stein, this is just a propaganda
46 exercise, is it not? The opinion surveys are just a
47 propaganda ------
48 A. Opinion surveys are not released to the public
49 whatsoever. They have to be -----
50
51 Q. No, but it is a propaganda exercise to the crew?
52 A. It is not. It is absolutely not. This is an internal
53 thing that we share with our employees, we share with our
54 management people. It is something we use to make sure
55 that we are doing the best we can with our crew people.
56 There is nothing to do with giving this to the media, to
57 the press or to any outside world. This is an internal
58 document for use by our crews and by our management.
59
60 Q. So you can pretend to your crew that you care about them?
