Asda loses latest appeal in equal pay dispute

Asda has been defeated at the Court of Appeal in the latest development in its dispute with staff members over equal pay.

The ruling forms part of the fair pay battle on behalf of Asda store workers who argue that they should be paid equally to their colleagues in the supermarket’s distribution centres for their work of equal value.

The Leeds-headquartered supermarket appealed two previous rulings, both of which found that lower paid shop workers, who are mostly women, can compare themselves to higher paid workers in Asda’s distribution centres, who are mostly men.

Asda lost this appeal in the latest judgement, with the Court of Appeal ruling that in the vast majority of cases the law allows an employee to compare themselves with any employee of the same employer.

The Asda employees are represented by law firm Leigh Day, which also works with more than 30,000 shop floor staff from the big four supermarkets. 

Linda Wong, a lawyer from the employment team at Leigh Day, said: “Our clients are obviously delighted to have won this major victory against Asda and we now hope that rather than continuing to spend huge sums of money thwarting attempts to pay their staff what they are worth, Asda and the other major supermarkets pay their staff fairly as these workers are also their customers and fair wages benefit all businesses and UK society in general.

“We call on Wal-Mart to lead the change for those hard-working store staff who are their workers and the public face of Asda.”

Asda have been contacted for comment.