name:

Omid Shafibeik

section:

Employment

for:	The Defence

experience:

Crew member in the Colchester store

summary:

The witness relates the working conditions of the Colchester store including the establishment of the Freedom Fighter's and the management's reaction.

Myself and some other crew members formed the McDonalds Freedom Fighters. This was a joke between all of us but the management took it seriously, and the 5 supposed ring leaders, myself included were taken the training room and warned by the assistant manager, Mark Davis that "the joke had gone too far, it must stop or there will be trouble".

cv:

See opening section of the witnesses statement below.

Full cv:
(not available for this witness)

full statement:

STATEMENT REGARDING MY EXPERIENCES AS A McDONALDS CREW MEMBER.

At this time I was a student at the Colchester Institute, and could only work weekends, and 1 or 2 days per week. As an Iranian who has no family in this country I was very dependant on the money I earned at McDonaids, the management knew this, and took advantage of the fact by forcing me to work extra days, work long shifts, and work all night, cleaning, without any notice, if someone from head office was visiting the store. If I refused to stay on past the time my shift should end I was either made to do dirty jobs like scrubbing the toilets, or threatened with a cut in hours. Because of my situation I had no choice but to comply. I was never paid overtime rate for any extra hours I did, and a taxi home was never provided.

I regularly witnessed girls under 18 working past 10pm, and boys under 18 workinq past midnight. This can be proved by the clockcards. Some of the people I remember are Simon Warr, Adrian Brett. Ryan George, Tim Simpon, Simon Gibney, Martin Braithwaite, Tracy Millane and Mandy Doherty.

Serious Burns

I also witnessed people suffering serious burns and being dissuaded from taking any action. I remember Vicky Golding being badly burnt, and going to hospital.