Asda loses latest appeal in equal pay case

The Employment Appeal Tribunal has dismissed an appeal by Asda to stop more than 10,000 equal pay claims against them from proceeding.

Solicitors from law firm Leigh Day have been working with the GMB union in bringing this historic equal pay case for its members.

In October 2016 the claimants won the first part of their equal pay claim against supermarket giant – the tribunal concluded that workers in Asda’s shops, who are mainly women, could compare themselves to male workers in Asda’s distribution centres.

Asda had argued that because different departments ran the shops and the distribution centres, and as there were different methods for setting pay, that no comparison was possible.

In their October judgment the Employment Tribunal dismissed Asda’s claims and agreed with the claimants that both sets of workers were employed by Asda and that the pay for all workers was controlled by Asda’s executive board, and overseen by their parent company Wal-Mart.

Asda appealed the tribunal’s October decision on ten different grounds. All were unsuccessful.

The Honourable Mr Justice Kerr concluded today that the employment tribunal had been correct in saying that shop workers could compare to the distribution workers.

Chris Benson, head of the employment and discrimination department at Leigh Day, said: “Asda continues to appeal every point available to them, rather than focusing on paying men in the distribution centres and women in the stores equally, but judges at every level have been adamant that the claims can continue.

“After yet another defeat, we hope that Asda take this opportunity to reflect on the merits of the claims, and concentrate on why they pay men more than women for jobs of equal value, rather than trying to stop the claims going ahead at all.”

Tim Roache, GMB general secretary, added: “GMB look forward to Asda management sitting down and finding a sensible negotiated solution to recognising that our female members in stores should be paid and valued as equal to the men.

“Instead of wasting money on litigation, we ask Asda to be a market leader in solving this wide-ranging industry problem. ”

An Asda spokesperson told TheBusinessDesk.com: “We are disappointed with this appeal ruling which relates to a technical preliminary issue of whether jobs in different parts of the business can be compared. The Employment Appeal Tribunal have given us permission to appeal against this judgment, to the Court of Appeal.

“We continue to strongly dispute the claims being made against us. The employment tribunal has yet to consider whether the jobs are of equal value in terms of their demands and if some jobs are, only then will the tribunal move on to consider the reasons for the differentials, including the existence of different market rates in different industry sectors.  At Asda hourly-paid colleagues doing the same job in the same location are paid the same. Men and women doing the same job in our retail stores are paid the same.

“Men and women doing the same job in our distribution centres are paid the same. Pay rates in stores differ from pay rates in distribution centres for legitimate reasons, including the different market rates for different jobs in different sectors.”