Who would bother to create jobs in modern Britain? Clothing retailer Next has done plenty of job-creation over the past few years – only to be whacked by an equal pay claim brought by 3,500 shop assistants. An employment tribunal has ruled that the company was wrong to pay them less than it paid staff at its warehouses. With back pay it could cost the company £30 million.
The cost of this kind of case goes far beyond the potential legal liability itself
Equal pay is one thing where it concerns men and women working alongside each other in the same jobs. It is quite another when it is extended to the concept of ‘work of equal value’, as it was in this case. The tribunal ruled that Next failed to show that paying its shop workers, who are overwhelmingly women, lower pay rates than its warehouse workers, who are mostly men, was not sex discrimination. There
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