Supermarket Tesco attended court last week as it seeks to overturn a legal decision regarding an ongoing £4bn equal pay dispute.
The case, which was first launched in 2018 by law firms Harcus Parker and Leigh Day, is focused on three tranches of claims from around 49,000 current and former store workers, who are mainly women.
They have alleged that they are paid less than male-dominated distribution centre staff for work of equal value. None of the allegations have been determined so far.
The case has already passed through several employment tribunal stages, including an employment appeal tribunal earlier this year. It ruled that the retailer should have been allowed to submit expert economic evidence that argues market forces explain the pay gap.
This appeal concerns a stage two equal value hearing that took place in tranche one. It is in respect of three job roles, where the work of two sample claimants for each of the roles and eight comparators have been considered.
Tesco is now appealing to the Court of Appeal, with its legal team arguing that previous tribunal rulings misunderstood its case.
It is asking the court to consider where an appellant to the employment appeal tribunal identifies alleged errors of law in its grounds of appeal, and if this illustrates those errors of law by reference to certain specific findings within the judgment under appeal.
It will also ask if the scope of its appeal is to any extent limited to specific findings.
The parties will appear before the justices for a one-day hearing. This will take place before a final hearing, which is scheduled to commence at a later point.
Tesco was contacted for comment prior to publication.
Alex Elliott, solicitor in the employment team at Birketts, said: “This case concerns the principle that men and women should receive equal pay for equal work. The Equality Act seeks to achieve this by implying a sex equality clause into every contract of employment, which gives employees of one sex the benefit of any more favourable terms, including pay, enjoyed by employees of the opposite sex who carry out equal work.
“While such disputes may appear straightforward in relation to equivalent or similar work, equal work for this purpose also includes work which is of equal value in terms of, for example, the effort, skill and decision-making involved, even where the roles themselves are different.
“There is a defence available to employers, known as the material factor defence, if they can show that any differences in terms were genuinely attributable to a material factor which is neither directly nor indirectly discriminatory on the grounds of sex, for example, location, skills shortages or differences in working hours.”
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