Ruling on equal pay at Next - the road to hell is paved with good intentions....

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Thousands of Next workers secure landmark £30 million equal pay victory (bmmagazine.co.uk)

"More than 3,500 current and former employees of fashion retailer Next have emerged victorious in a historic equal pay battle, marking the first successful claim of its kind against a major national retailer.
"After a six-year legal struggle, the Employment Tribunal ruled that the company had failed to justify paying its predominantly female sales consultants lower hourly wages than their male-dominated warehouse counterparts. This ruling could see Next facing compensation costs exceeding £30 million."

Roughly speaking, this goes well beyond the remit of what I'd consider "equal pay legislation." Historically, it was common for women to be paid less than men even when doing exactly the same work, and modern legislation rightly prevents companies from doing this. However, we seem to have moved onto a new level, in which companies can be forced to pay the same rate of pay for different jobs, on the grounds that "well, men more commonly do Job A while Job B is done mainly by women."

My own feelings are that a) no, working on the tills is not comparable with humping stuff about in a warehouse, especially when occupation risk is taken into account; b) women can and do work in warehouses if they want to; they are mostly not choosing to do so; c) this risks a lot of really dodgy downstream consequences, including the possibility that warehouse workers' wages could be pushed downwards as well, or the likelihood that more and more companies will close more brick-and-mortar branches of shops or services.

I think it is whether you allow courts to decide on wages on the premise of work of equal value or you let a dynamic market economy decide on wages which is essential a left c right issue in my opinion rather than a gender one. Ensuring care rates of pay for all is essentially a pillar of left wing politics and if you are left leaning fair enough. If you are more conservative and believe the market should pay a going rate for staff of either gender depending on a companies need then couk d you argue the state shouldn't intervene even with gender disparity?

I do think there are unintended consequences of this type of action when used in a market envoironment. Companies get undercut or outsource work to countries with more flexible Labour laws....maybe the economics wins ultimately?

I'm surprised how many people think that work with an arguably more physically challenging element (warehouse) is more valuable than work with a more mentally challenging element (shop floor).

Most jobs that are physically labour intensive are generally lower paid than jobs that are more mentally challenging.

Courts have had the ability to rule on work of equal value since the Equal Pay Act of 1970. Despite 32 years of Conservative government since, this hasn't been such a 'left' principle that any of those governments have changed it.

Bluemin - I don’t think anyone thinks it’s less valuable, but it is the case that warehouse staff are harder to recruit.

And the comparison with female footballers is misleading - they don’t have the same ‘value’ as their male equivalents because they (sadly) entertain much smaller audiences. They don’t generate as much revenue.

I could argue that Michal Hussein should earn more than Any and Dec. All our presenters after all and I suppose we would have to work out whether Michal's lack of Geordie humour makes her work of less value.

The point being we are happy with the market determine pay in some sectors independent of gender especially at the high end of the the spectrum so do we need to apply the principles of equal pay of work of equal value across all roles and how do we realistically do that?

Why do we value physically demanding jobs more than others? It's a very caveman approach and largely because we're a sexist society who value what men can do over what women can. Why is physically lifting and moving stuff more valuable than the social skills involved in customer service.

Warehouse and retail work are broadly equivalent. Women who don't take office-based jobs or study for specific trades largely end up in retail customer service. Men who don't take office-based jobs or study for specific trades largely end up in warehouses. While the roles do involve different tasks (although my shop assistant jobs did require a lot of lifting, pulling and unloading too), the employees are generally of the same skill level and in most cases it would be fairly simple to redeploy either role to the other. If anything, you'd have a harder job training a warehouse worker to do customer service than vice versa, so if anything they should be paid more.

Equal pay for women’s football is absolutely a thing that is being looked at

Crikey. I can’t believe you’ve not heard of equal pay for work of equal value? This is the law in England, not equal pay for the identical job.
I really despair for women’s equality, it sounds like you belong in the 1950s.

I don't agree with it.

No, this isn't correct. Employers are free to pay unsociable hours allowances, and will continue to be free to do so.

Next were paying a higher basic rate for work typically done by men, than for work typically done by women. If there was a justification for that in terms of skills required or work demands, they'd have done so. They failed to justify it, so they lost.

That's what I was going to say. Watch Made in Dagenham and it's very obvious.

There has always been an issue with men's work being seen as worse, or harder or more important. It isn't. Care work is the most obvious one. Dangerous, difficult physically and mentally, horribly underpaid.

I think it depends which brand you worked for. I worked for a brand where floor staff had to take in deliveries. We had to be in at 545am for a 6am delivery. Although this was only 3 days a week for us, larger stores it was more. I also covered at a store in a shopping centre that traded until 9pm every night (except Sundays). The recovery shift was, until midnight, (a mixture of 3pm-12am, and 6pm-12am) done by floor staff. There was no unsociable hours pay for us at all.

It’s less an equal value question and more a question of material factors - is there a reason other than the sex of the workers which explains the difference.

next warehouse staff are 53% male so hardly a case of systemically favouring “male” warehouse jobs over shops. The reality is that warehouses tend to be clustered in the same locations and for a variety of reasons you have to pay a premium to attract and retain staff. The ET decided this was not a good enough reason to pay shop workers less - ie: Next should have paid much more than they needed to shop workers to ensure no discriminatory effect.

its a mad decision and makes businesses completely unworkable.

I think which job is 'hardest' is hugely subjective and will depend on the preferences of the individual. I don't think either of these jobs requires a higher level of qualifications, skills or experience so it's hard to argue that one should be paid more than the other based on the nature of the work involved. I therefore agree with the ruling.

Those arguing for market economics to decide rates of pay, forget that this rarely works for female dominated industries. If you think of virtually all of the notoriously underpaid sectors in our economy then virtually all of them are dominated by women. When you think of carers, nursing, cleaners etc then there is a clear labour shortage and demand exceeds supply and yet still wages remain ridiculously low. Market forces don't seem to be working as they should for these roles so why should we believe they are working correctly for the Next retail staff?

I used to work in a store and I spent more time stocking, cleaning and taking deliveries than interacting with customers and being at the till. We also didn't have any lifting equipment like forklifts or pallet jacks, which you typically do have in a warehouse. Not all of the work done in a warehouse is manually, whereas most physical labor in stores is done by hand and you often don't have enough room to have proper posture for lifting, so it's much harder on your back.

Edited to add: The only difference I could see if for mailorder warehouses such as amazon, when it comes to the work of order pickers.

My own feelings are that a) no, working on the tills is not comparable with humping stuff about in a warehouse, especially when occupation risk is taken into account; b) women can and do work in warehouses if they want to; they are mostly not choosing to do so; c) this risks a lot of really dodgy downstream consequences, including the possibility that warehouse workers' wages could be pushed downwards as well, or the likelihood that more and more companies will close more brick-and-mortar branches of shops or services.

b) hasn't historically been true. In the late 90s/early 2000 when I was doing my time in retail, I was refused work in the warehouse of my (small electronics - nothing involving forklifts, pallets were all mixed, there was nothing in the store that I couldn't lift) because I was a woman. I was lucky to talk my way into sales staff, as all the other female employees were on the tills.

I've also done my time on the tills, and my brother has spent significant time working the warehouse/restocking in the same supermarket - we were both on the same hourly rate. They are different jobs, but both are physically and mentally demanding. Both require similar levels of training (forklift work aside). There has historically been an under-valuing of women's work, and I suspect that this is yet another example of it.

This has been the law for a long time. Next should have complied with it.

The same boxes lifted in the warehouse are taken to shops, where they are also lifted.

Having worked in retail when I was young I was expected to unload deliveries (hump boxes around), fill shelves, serve customers, prepare bespoke orders, take apart a giant chocolate fountain and an ice cream unit and clean both every day, know the allergen information and country of origin of the main ingredients of the products we sold and handle money/cash up for minimum wage (used to get an extra 15p an hour for the cashing up). Move heavy shelving and signage around for each new promotion, whilst up and down ladders. Also to have to deal with often difficult and sometimes aggressive members of the public on a daily basis.
I also did some summer shifts in the next warehouse preparing sale stock for now per hour. I can tell you now the warehouse work wasn't harder, tedious, yes.

Perpetuating the idea that physical (male) labour is worth more than emotional (female) labour.

id rather lug boxes around all day than be expected to be wear lipstick and be nice to people who are rude and demanding.

I did one day in a warehouse when I was 19 and left because the sexual Harrasment was intolerable.

if companies like this go bust, so what they are only functioning and making money off the backs of underpaid women. Much like the rest of society.

this is a victory. Hooray.

OP have you ever worked in retail?

Companies like Next suck everything they can from their minimum wage workers on the shop floor.

This decision to award women equal pay is one tiny victory for low paid staff. We should be celebrating it.

But it’s harder to recruit warehouse workers

There’s already been several posts in this thread that explain the different roles in detail. Even aside that the shop floor staff seem to be doing pretty demanding physical work too, why isn’t the emotional and mental labour of their role more valuable? Why is ‘strength’ the more valuable ability? Is it perhaps because it’s associated with masculinity?
It’d be fascinating to know as a piece of this whether retirement ages for the warehouse and shop floor staff are vastly different as the body’s physical breakdown is often cited as a reason why men in warehouses should be paid more

We need to stop valuing qualities innate in men more highly. Being male is not a talent. Men’s work isn’t more valuable than women’s because men are physically stronger.

Sometimes I think the intrinsic quality shared by women is being tolerant of shit.

Probably because it’s not a welcoming environment for women

Anyone who deals with the public deserves more money than someone hiding in the warehouse, regardless of if they are male or female.
I have never worked for Next but I know people who have and they are supposed to be an awful employer who pay badly.