An ‘equal pay’ claim brought by 3,500 shop assistants at Next has succeeded after an employment tribunal decided that their work was “of equal value” to that of (mostly male) warehouse workers. It’s a dark day for British business, says Ross Clark in the Spectator.
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.
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 is no suggestion, by the way, that the company is discriminating against women by refusing to employ them in its warehouses – any female shop assistants who feel underpaid are quite free to apply for a job there, where they will be paid the same as male warehouse workers.
It doesn’t take too much imagination to see how destructive this area of employment law could turn out to be. The Next case is similar to the equal pay claim which brought Birmingham City Council to its knees, leading to bankruptcy and council tax bills being jacked up by 21% over the next couple of years. There, the issue was with cleaners, whose work was deemed to be of ‘equal value’ to that of refuse collectors. Henceforth, all employers – whether in the public or private sector – are going to have to second-guess what an employment tribunal would make of the various occupations on its pay roll.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.