Top European court rules against Tesco in equal pay case
 

Was Debated on SkyNewsHD Business hour

[Affected workers could be entitled to
as much as six years of back pay,
amounting to at least £10,000 each.]


[The European Court of Justice has ruled
that Tesco does not pay female staff
the same amount for equivalent work
done by male employees,
in a landmark judgment that sides
with employees of the UK supermarket giant.
Thousands of shop floor staff, most of whom
are women, have accused Britain's biggest
grocer of paying them up to £3 per hour less
than the mostly male warehouse workers,
when their work is of equal value.
The Tesco Action Group, which first launched
legal action in 2018, estimates as many
as 25,000 female employees may be owed
compensation after being underpaid
for at least seven years.

[Leigh Day, the law firm representing
the Tesco employees,
has previously said that affected workers
could be entitled to as much as
six years of back pay, amounting to at least £10,000 each.

It is thought that the case may be one
of the last major decisions by the
EU in relation to UK employment law before
changes brought about by Brexit take hold.]


https://news.sky.com/story/top-europ...-case-12323737

I wonder how they determined women were getting paid less for the exact same role as men...

It doesn't say anything about the "exact same" role. The point is that the work was found to be of equal value to the company, and I would imagine requires similar levels of entry qualifications and training - meaning that the only reason for the gender divide is physical (men being more suited to physical labour), and yet the role with more women is paid less.

The issue has nothing to do with "the exact same" job. There are valid reasons for some jobs to pay more than others - education, qualifications, experience, risk - "men are stronger" is not one of those valid reasons.

I guess the people who want to be paid more should ask for warehouse work then. Sitting on a chair and beeping things through a till isn't equal to jumping boxes around or whatever physical work goes on in a warehouse.

ETA: don't get me wrong, **** megacorps like Tesco, and I appreciate the grift of them acting like being a checkout monkey is equivalent to warehouse work.

Well considering they won the case, nope they don't need to do that

Obviously not :joker:

But really, I bet a lot of people would rather work in the warehouse over sitting behind a till for 8 hours, dealing with customers and just being bored. At least in the ware house you're moving around and not really having to deal with anyone, one is more physically draining the other mentally draining

You could say that learning the checkout, dealing with a variety of customer queries, handling cash and card transactions, refunds etc etc is far more mentally taxing than lumping boxes around a warehouse. Different skill sets but obviously of equal importance to the running of the company

after brexit i can't see Tesco taking any notice of a judgement from a court that no longer has jurisdiction

Tesco and Asda UK
have both stated they will fight this!