Asda workers are demonstrating in Brighton and Manchester today to mark the start of their landmark equal pay claim against the supermarket.
More than 60,000 workers are involved in the equal pay claim, which is expected to last three months.
This is the second stage of the case. In 2016, thousands of female store staff took the company to employment tribunal, where it was agreed that the roles of shop floor workers and mostly male warehouse staff could be compared for the purposes of assessing equal pay.
Asda appealed but the decision that the roles were comparable was upheld at the Employment Appeal Tribunal, the Court of Appeal, and in 2021, the Supreme Court agreed that “common terms and conditions wherever they work” were applied to both sets of workers.
The GMB union is arguing that the predominantly female shop floor workforce is paid up to £3.74 an hour less than the mainly male warehouse workforce.
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Nadine Houghton, GMB national officer, said: “Asda workers are making history. The result of this hearing will call time on the retailers undervaluing their predominantly women shop floor workers.
“The entire retail sector has been built on the structural undervaluing of women’s work but GMB members are changing this.”
An Asda spokesperson said: “We fully respect the right of current and former colleagues to bring this case, however, we strongly reject any claim that Asda’s pay rates are influenced by gender.
“There are numerous different jobs within retail and within warehouses. We continue to defend these claims because retail and distribution are two different industry sectors that have their own distinct skill sets and pay structures.”
Lauren Lougheed, partner at Leigh Day, which is representing the female workers, said the firm had been encouraged by the success of workers at Next, who last month celebrated an equal pay win after a six-year case.
“We hope we will also be successful in the parallel claim we are bringing on behalf of more than 60,000 clients against Asda.
“If we win at this Stage 3 hearing, Asda will then have to prove that there is a genuine reason for the pay difference between store workers and warehouse workers which is not based on sex.
“Next bosses failed to do this and our clients won. We are confident that the same will be true in the Asda claim.”
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