Evidence is being heard to decide whether the roles of Asda’s store workers and those working in its distribution centres are of equal value.
The Employment Tribunal at the Crown Court in Manchester has begun its substantive hearing of group equal pay litigation brought by thousands of supermarket workers.
The tribunal is at its second stage, following the Court of Appeal’s decision earlier this year, that Asda shop-floor workers, who are mostly female, can compare their role with higher-paid warehouse staff, who are mostly male.
The shop workers, represented by law firm Leigh Day through the website equalpaynow.co.uk, argue that they should be paid equally to their colleagues in the supermarket’s distribution centres for their work of equal value.
Equal pay cases have three main stages: Are the roles comparable? If they are comparable, are they of equal value? And finally, if they are of equal value, is there a reason other than sex discrimination that means the roles should not be paid equally?
Asda’s workers won the first stage of their case on
comparability in October 2016, Asda appealed the decision but was unsuccessful.
The supermarket giant then appealed to the Court of Appeal, but this was also lost
in January this year. Leigh Day explained that Asda has requested to further appeal the judgment in the Supreme Court.
However, permission for that appeal is yet to be decided.
Lauren Lougheed, associate solicitor from Leigh Day, said: “We have been fighting this case on behalf of our tens of thousands of clients for over five years now. Despite winning the first stage of the case, and two subsequent appeals, Asda continue to drag our clients through the courts, rather than admitting defeat and paying them the fair wages they deserve.
“We are committed to continuing our fight for equal pay for all our supermarket clients across Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons and the Co-op,” she said.
Leigh Day represents more than 30,000 shop-floor staff from the big five supermarkets – Asda, Co-Op, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Tesco – in similar equal pay cases. It is estimated that if they lose their equal pay cases and are ordered to pay all eligible staff, the cost could be more than £8 billion.
