Next staff win £30m equal pay claim

More than 3,500 current and former store staff of Enderby-based retail giant Next have won a six-year legal fight for equal pay.

This is the first equal pay claim of this type against a national retailer to reach the final legal stage and secure a win. The total amount payable by Next as a result of the win is currently estimated to be in excess of £30m.

The Employment Tribunal has ruled that Next failed to show that paying their sales consultants, who are overwhelmingly women, lower hourly pay rates than their warehouse operatives, was not sex discrimination. Sales consultants receive lower basic hourly pay than warehouse operatives (a difference ranging from 40p to £3). The claimants’ average salary loss is more than £6,000 each.

The store staff who brought the claim will now be entitled to compensation by way of back pay going back up to six years from when they put in their claims and including the time that has elapsed since they put in their claims. The first claims were submitted in 2018. Their basic hourly pay terms will also automatically be equalised in their existing contracts.

Compensation (backpay) for the claimants will now be assessed by the Tribunal. Only those who have brought claims will be entitled to compensation for lost pay and guaranteed to have their contracts automatically equalised, but law firm Leigh Day, which represented the Next staff, says it is continuing to submit claims for sales consultants who were not in the original 3,500 and the number of claims are expected to increase “significantly” over the coming weeks and months following the successful ruling.

The significance of the result extends beyond Next with Leigh Day representing more than 112,000 store staff across the five major supermarkets, Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Co-op all bringing similar equal pay claims.

Helen Scarsbrook, aged 68, from Eastleigh near Southampton, who has worked for Next for more than 20 years and was one of three lead claimants representing all the sales consultants in the claim, said: “We did it! We have achieved equal pay for Next sales consultants. It has been a long six years battling for the equal pay we all felt we rightly deserved but today we can say we won.

“Anyone who works in retail knows that it is a physically and emotionally tough job. Customer service, in particular, is very demanding and we do that in addition to lots of other essential tasks that go to make Next a successful business. You become so used to having your work undervalued that you can easily start to doubt it yourself. I am so grateful to the judges for seeing our jobs for what they really are – equal.”

Elizabeth George, Leigh Day partner and barrister representing the successful claimants, said: “Helen and her colleagues in this claim have achieved something hugely significant. This is exactly the type of pay discrimination that the equal pay legislation was intended to address.

“When you have female dominated jobs being paid less than male dominated jobs and the work is equal, employers cannot pay women less simply by pointing to the market and saying – it is the going rate for the jobs. We knew that already. The Employment Tribunal has confirmed employers must go further to justify paying the different rates. They rightly found that Next could have afforded to pay a higher rate but chose not to and that the reason for that was purely financial. Helen and thousands of her colleagues had the courage and perseverance to bring these claims and see them through to a successful end. I am so pleased for them.

“It is worth reminding people that the financial compensation they will now be entitled to is not a windfall. It is pay that they were always entitled to if Next had complied with its equal pay obligations.”

In a statement, Next said: “The tribunal rejected the majority of the claims made by the claimants, in particular all claims of direct discrimination, and all aspects of the claims made in respect of bonus pay.

“The tribunal expressed serious criticisms of the claimants’ expert evidence and overwhelmingly accepted the evidence of Next’s expert and fact witnesses.”