‘It is predominantly women who are missing out’
‘It is predominantly women who are missing out’
Asda staff demonstrate outside store as pay dispute nears court showdown
By Sarah Ward
Workers demonstrated outside the Kettering Asda store yesterday to raise awareness of a pay claim that has been running for more than a decade.
Members of the GMB union took hold of their banners to make the store’s shoppers aware of the dispute they have been engaged in with their employers for several years.
A collective action is due to reach the courts in September over the issue that the firm’s distribution workers earn between £1.50 and £3 per hour more than the staff on the shop floor, who do very similar work.
GMB regional organiser Rachelle Wilkins has been involved in helping workers with the dispute since the late 2000s when the legal action first began, and is confident the upcoming court battle will result in her members receiving substantial payouts. The compensation claim includes three elements of back payments; forward pay (from the day the claims lodged until the day compensation is paid) and then a wage increase. Currently shop workers earn £12 per hour.
Rachelle Wilkins said:
“The shop workers just do the reverse of the distribution workers. We have won four court cases so far and we are nailed on to win this as well.
“It is going to be the first of its kind, as actions against the public sector have been won, but not the private sector. I think there will be a domino effect after this, with others coming down the line.
“It is predominantly women who are missing out, as they typically do the shop floor work, with more men in the distribution centre. But Leigh Day, the legal firm representing our workers, are taking it ahead as an equal value claim, so that men can be in the claim too.”
Workers from across the company’s 1,000 chain of stores are involved in the action. The lawyers acting for the Asda workers have so far won cases to show the store jobs and warehouse jobs are comparable, at employment tribunal, an employment tribunal appeal, the court of appeal and also the supreme court.
Rachelle Wilkins says that the Kettering store has approximately 200 staff and the equal pay claim for the Kettering staff will equate to around £3.8m. In total the claim is predicted to cost Asda anywhere up to £1.2bn there are more than 55,000 people involved in the action.
“There are going to be some substantial claims, with some staff compensated between £20,000 and £40,000. One worker said to me ‘That’s a deposit for my house.’ I have been involved in this for many years and I’m confident they are going to win the case.”
Neil Gardiner is a GMB representative within the store and has worked on the shop floor for 16 years. He has been the representative for two years and has helped raise the union’s members.
He said:
“At the last minute we were told we could not have the demonstration on the site, so we did it on the pavement outside.
“We had so much engagement from people passing by and asking us why we were doing it.
“The sums of money that people will hopefully get in compensation will be life changing.”
We contacted Asda about the demonstration and it said:
“At Asda, male and female colleagues doing the same jobs in stores are paid the same and this is equally true in our distribution centres. We continue to defend these claims because retail and distribution are very different sectors, with their own distinct skill sets and rates of pay.”
The company’s roots go back to the 1920s in Yorkshire and it became known as Asda in the 1960s after a partnership was forged between the Asquith family and Associated Dairies. In 1999 it was brought out by Walmart and in 2002 the company was named as the top company to work for in the UK by the Sunday Times. In 2020 the Issa Brothers (who founded the Euro Garages chain) and TDR Capital acquired a majority stake in the company. Zuber Issa is selling more of his shares to TDR capital which means the private equity firm will have the majority share in Asda.