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.

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

The law has recognised that there should be equal pay for equivalent work (which includes work of equal value) rather than simply the same work, for decades. It’s not new. There’s even a film about it.

Don't be ridiculous! They made a profit of £918m last year. They are hardly on their uppers!

I agree with OP's general intuition. That said it surprises me that shopfront work has been considered "lesser", given there's a variety of skills involved, many of which would strike me as more challenging than just carrying things around. So perhaps there is sexism there.

Someone on Twitter pointed out that the warehouse jobs tend to be less flexible in terms of hours and harder to get to. So the extra money does compensate for something.

On a wider scale I think having the courts decide how much different jobs are worth is quite dangerous. It's not the role of judges to decide how much each position in society is worth. Imagine if we took that to its logical conclusion?

I work in a warehouse with men and lots of women. Never had a problem

There’s more to being a welcoming environment than not having had a problem with people that you work with

On a wider scale I think having the courts decide how much different jobs are worth is quite dangerous. It's not the role of judges to decide how much each position in society is worth. Imagine if we took that to its logical conclusion

They decide based on evidence presented to the court. Most industries have well established job evaluation schemes that consider all factors of the role and entry requirements to determine it's value.

Agree they also have cash handling, Processing card payments, cleaning. Let’s not forget they have to buy their “uniform”, possible pay for parking at work

Agree with others, this ruling is correct.

The patriarchy thrives - we've been brainwashed to believe that physical work (done by men) should be paid more because being strong is better and more important. There also still seems to be belief that men should be paid more as they support the family and are the breadwinner.

Skills such as dealing with customers and being front of house, which these days often involves calming customers, are seen as 'soft' skills which translates into less pay. In fact both skills are important and should be paid accordingly,

Have you never noticed OP how in lower skilled jobs women's pay is often much less - nursery worker vs brickie? I would say the nursery worker is higher skill but is paid less.

This is what the Birmingham Council equal pay claim is about. For context grade 2 women were paid £11k and men £30k plus £15k bonus. Happily they were taken to court and lost, despite them trying to defend it,

But actually looking at this thread it sounds like quite a few women did want to do it, and got put off it, told they wouldn't like it, or an male-dominated environment was created within warehouses (id bet with swearing/crude talk, a few page 3 girl pics adorning the walls etc!) that made them unwelcoming to women.

Lol Next’s pre tax profit is close to 1bn pounds. I think they’ll cope

I think these are interesting points OP.

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.

Being on your feet all day on a shop floor is pretty demanding. There is a degree of moving things etc. too plus customer service skills, using tills, maths. So it is slightly more skilled I would argue. Risk should be covered in risk assessment.

There may be higher longer term risk of warehouse work long term though. Or higher wages prevents staff attrition. Either way why does that affect what rate shop assistants should get paid? In terms of pure logic not a market economy?

c) is only really relevant if you believe a market economy takes precedence over equality. Having said that it's likely we are heading towards more closures anyway due to the way things are going-this may accelerate that but its going that way anyway, be under no illusion.

Exactly this. I worked for Next for a short stint at uni. They were awful. I was on a ‘till’ but it was expected to hump stuff about in the warehouse, redecorate the home sets and lump furniture about. No security. We also had to clean up, no in house cleaner.

Ask anyone who works in a retail store how much risk assessment gets done, how much lifting equipment they have, how much PPE they have.

The answer will probably be none whatsoever.

If you get home delivery, look at how high the top rack of van is. Do you think the loader has a special lift to get it up there? No, it's a straight overhead lift. The delivery driver has the reverse to do when they get to your home.

Oh, and these will be store workers on NMW or not much more.

I think sometimes people just want to believe that underpaying jobs that are almost always done by women is a coincidence or justified eg by physical strength, because the alternative (that society still sees women as worth less than men) is too bloody upsetting.

By the physical strength logic you’d see John who works in the warehouse lugging boxes around take a pay cut when he’s promoted to managing rotas and pay etc as he is sitting down more.

I worked in a gift shop for a stately home and it involved a lot of manual labour. Deliveries were often just dumped outside on pallets, I would then have to unwrap and move all the heavy boxes inside, then unpack and store the goods. I was not given equipment to move the heavy boxes like they have in warehouses, it all had to be lifted manually.

The heaviest were the plant pots. The pallets weighed in excess of 1000kg. All the different sizes of pots were stacked inside each other, these each weighed 100kg and were stacked 2 high. I had to fight to get protective gloves and they only agreed after I showed them my bruised and lacerated hands! I would also get detritus all over the smart work clothes I was expected to wear and supply at my own expense. I never did get the coveralls I asked for.

I think this reflects that retail was seen as women’s work and therefore not highly valued, and nothing to do with the actual work involved. See also the outrage when a (male dominated) manufacturing plant goes bust and loses a few hundred jobs, versus when a nationwide retailer goes under losing thousands of jobs.

I’ve done warehouse work in a distribution centre for a supermarket and retail work (oasis and topshop - obviously a while ago) and there is no way in earth that retail was the easy option. Warehouse I was rushed of my feet - always busy but mentally easier - one thing at a time, music on, fairly relaxed atmosphere. Retail physically demanding (you are still humping boxes) crazy busy, much more need for soft skills, loads of arsey customers, shoplifters, till systems being dicks. Try managing the changing rooms in topshop on a Saturday afternoon and tell me it’s an easy job compared to warehousing.

Thank you DibbyDoos; my thoughts exactly. I worked in retail for years; it's physically and mentally draining. You're pulled in all directions at once; after finishing work for the day I could barely function at times; I had to decompress for an hour. Often it was boiling hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter; you need to be physically fit, mentally alert at all times, and have a thick skin where customers are concerned. I've been dehydrated from not being able to get a drink of water when I needed one, developed migraines as a result, eye strain, and foot problems from standing for hours at a time. I'd say that working in retail for years has contributed in no small way to a decline in my health. There's a lot more to retail than "sitting at a till". I hope that's being recognised now. It's disheartening when other women downplay the work other women do, especially for minimum wage.

And it's John in the warehouse not Joan in the store who will be able to go for promotion.

John has a full time contract so is better able to afford a car and follow a career path across different sites. When he became team leader, John wasn't expected to cover extra shifts at the drop of a hat when someone is off sick. He might have to do a bit of overtime but he's already full time so there is a limit.

Joan only works 16 hours per week. She would like to work more but any extra hours aren't regular so she can't set up regular childcare. Team Leader in a store is even worse. You are expected to cover any extra hours if someone calls in sick. This means being called in on your day off, staying on or having to come in for an extra 4 hour shift later in the day. At the same time you will get harangued by management (is that you, John?) to keep the wages bill down and service levels up.

Joan can't afford to run a car or set up full time childcare because on a management whim she can be knocked back to her contractual 16 hours per week for a month because reasons.

yes an apparently if men are better suited to a warehouse job - as per pps- then it *isn’t a harder hob for them. So unless they deserve more pay just for being men…

Can’t park in the town centre so using public transport which is tricky depending where you live.
Warehouse probably has better parking.

These are the same laws that did for loads of local authorities (including Birmingham) previously. They are long established and have in a little measure helped a lot of women who bear the brunt of inequality.

Let's just hope Next's management are a bit more on the ball and remember that this ruling will affect backdated pension contributions. And not "forget" like Birmingham and discover decades later they sill owe millions.

You don't understand equal pay and sex discrimination in employment law.

It is sex discrimination to pay less to female dominated roles that have the same skill level as male dominated roles.

Most of the pay gap is occupational segregation.

It's not a choice for most women.

As a young person looking for minimum wage jobs the only ones I saw advertised and got offered were female dominated ones like cashiering.

Men are more likely to get 'jobs for the boys' by word of mouth

Not to mention, if she joined Next recently, then Joan probably does work in the Warehouse too while John wouldn’t have the minimum qualifications to do anything else.

Next’s issue is also a wider Leicestershire problem. Many warehouses actively discriminate against women so you can’t develop the experience needed to negotiate higher salaries. Having said that Next HQ pays phd qualified data analysts sub 30K as that also tends to be a female profession there (spouses of their Indian IBM consultants usually), so critical thinking isn’t being applied.