Anyone else think the action against Tesco is important?

[CanalTrip]

The legal challenge to Tesco about the disparity in salaries of workers in the shop, largely women, and workers in the warehouses, largely men, looks enormously important for lower paid women in jobs historically carried out by women.

This is the first step in what is probably going to be a long and painful legal, but also psychological battle to uncover people's unconscious biases.

There is another reason that DC staff are on better pay, they were (historically) more unionised, and there were several strikes that hit all supermarkets over pay and conditions. I can't recall anything similar with shop-based staff.

It doesn't matter that some ransoms on the internet say forklift truck driving is different from shelf stacking, the company had already said they were of equal value, by placing both roles on the same pay scale. So in the case of Birmingham, binmen and dinner ladies were on the same pay scale, but binmen were being paid nearly £20k a year more than the dinner later because they had better bonus and overtime. Which makes a mockery of the jobs having been categorised as the same value. I think it was an equal pay claim, rather than an explicit sexual discrimination case.

because they had better bonus and overtime. Which makes a mockery of the jobs having been categorised as the same value.

I have a team of people that are all paid the same - they're all on the same payscale etc.

They don't all get the same bonus every year - it's based on individual performance.

Overtime is based on whether you do overtime. (duh!)

Thanks for explaining NotAnotherJaffaCake. That had not been made clear in news reports. So is the discrepancy because the women are likely to be graded as more "junior" on this payscale or because they are doing less overtime?

If binmen are getting double time overtime and dinner ladies either just getting time or time and a half foe a job of the same nominal value, that's not fair. Either the jobs need to be reclassified as of different worth or dinner later need better overtime conditions.

CanalTrip - don't know about the specifics of the Tesco case, I'm afraid. The press is generally going for a clickbaity explaination.

Tbh my DH welcomes this as a male working in the shop he too earns less than the warehouse workers. It might go some way to making up for the unsocial hours bonuses that have been eroded over recent years.

Tbh my DH welcomes this as a male working in the shop he too earns less than the warehouse workers.

Tesco need to sort it out one way or the other, either pay them the same or re-grade the jobs, that much is clear.

Why didn't your DH fancy earning more cash working in the warehouse out of interest?

I used to work for a TV rental comapany..........Boxclever 14/15 years ago

On the occasional Saturday there were these events the company called mega events.

Both the warehouse workers and the shop workers had to attend (i never did one as i was only with the company for 9 months till they went bust) and there was only one of these events while i was working there. ) they would start in the morning and often run past 5.30pm which was normal shop closing time. After 5.30pm at these events which would often run over, the shop workers stopped being paid AT ALL while the warehouse workers got double time!!

It isn’t actually working in the warehouse of the superstore or extra shops but working in the distribution warehouse. We don’t have one local.

So actually this helps everyone who works in the stores.

And did you know the home delivery drivers get paid quite a bit more than the people in store? Think they get the same as the warehouse people tbh

My wife went through an equal pay review a few years ago. She worked in care and ended up losing out massively. She lost unsociable hours pay and extra payments for such things as doing sleepins and waking nights. She lost her payment for being a mini bus driver and a couple of other payments based on qualifications. Apparently things like overtime, unsociable hours and qualification based payments were unfair to those that worked 9-5, didn’t need to extra qualifications or weren’t required to do overtime. Initially the tried to claim the supposed over payments back but eventually relented and signed it off as a goodwill payment. Swampytiggaa curious which delivery drivers get paid more? I know someone who recently left as his pay fell below minimum wage as he was regularly working 14 hour days and only paid for 8 hours a day.

The issue is that we have always considered the jobs that men have traditionally done as more valuable and constantly change the criteria to justify the disparity.

For example, why are customer facing skills seen as less important than jobs using physical strength? IF it was really about physical strength then construction workers would be paid more than IT professionals.

If it was about value to society nurses and teachers would be paid more than bankers.

At the end of the day employers pay as little as they think they can get away with, and they know they can get away with paying female-dominated jobs less because historically that's always been the case.

It's also about really welcoming women into male-dominated job areas and vice versa. Working in a supermarket as a teen I envied the lads in the warehouse their job. They didn't have to customer-face, be smart and presentable and had far more camaraderie ááit was well known that being a girl in that environment would bring forth all kinds of put-downs and harassment.

And you wouldn't be able to complain because then you would be seen as "not being able to hack it" and told to grow some balls.

It's about the culture of male-dominated jobs as much as anything else.

It's also about really welcoming women into male-dominated job areas and vice versa. Working in a supermarket as a teen I envied the lads in the warehouse their job. They didn't have to customer-face, be smart and presentable and had far more camaraderie ááit was well known that being a girl in that environment would bring forth all kinds of put-downs and harassment.

And you wouldn't be able to complain because then you would be seen as "not being able to hack it" and told to grow some balls.

It's about the culture of male-dominated jobs as much as anything else.

Agree picking up heavy box - important strength. Spending an hour trying get someone with Dementia feed while scream shout at you - not important strength. Even if not many people could do that day in day out.

I have yet to see a warehouse job advertised say men only and a shop job saying women only .Equal pay for jobs adding equal value to the business this will benefit everyone and should not get side tracked saying it is gender related .

The home delivery drivers get paid more per hour than store staff. I think they get close to £10 an hour (at Tesco)

Husband works nights and weekends and earns less than that.

Swampytiggaa that’s not the case across all supermarkets barely above minimum wage at others and hours paid versus hours worked are massively different.

I didn’t say it was the same at all supermarkets. My husband works for Tesco. He knows how much the drivers are paid compared to the other staff.

I have yet to see a warehouse job advertised say men only and a shop job saying women only

Tbf even if it doesn't specify male/female there's actually not a lot to stop them predominantly hiring based on sex.

Unless someone can prove that's what they are doing then there's no way of stopping them.

It's the "work of equal value" test - if the Tesco women can demonstrate that they do a sufficiently similar job, they should win.

Does it even have to be a similar job? Going back a while now, maybe 10 years or so, my father was working in the IT part of a prison. There was an equal pay thing going on, I am not sure what the IT people were comparing themselves to..something to do with different pay grades for equally important work, or something like that. They did win, and my father (and all of the men working there, there was only one woman) got an absolutely huge payout going back many many years. I did assume at the time that it was about prison officers V IT staff..but I thought obviously prison officers have the harder and more dangerous job of the two but it seems whoever decided on the case disagreed, OR it was just about equal value to the company rather than similar kinds of jobs. If this makes sense.