Asda could potentially face a £1.2bn bill in a landmark equal pay case after an email leaked to ITV News revealed that almost 55,000 shopfloor workers are not being paid fairly.
According to ITV News, the message compared the jobs of mainly women working on the shop floor to their predominantly male colleagues in distribution centres – and suggested that the men are earning £1.50 – £3 more an hour.
The email scored the workers across 11 factors including knowledge and responsibility, and claims that the shopfloor roles included in the study scored slightly higher on average, with 453 points, than those in the distribution centre, with 447.
The supermarket chain will now have to answer questions on equal pay within its workforce when the case comes to tribunal next year.
If they lose, they face a potentially huge compensation bill – up to £1.2bn – in a case that has major implications for the entire supermarket sector and the retail industry more widely.
On top of that, Asda will then be faced with an increased pay bill of up to £400m each year.
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GMB National Officer, Nadine Houghton told ITV News: “The entire retail sector has been built on the structural discrimination of women. Women’s labour has been significantly undervalued and it’s about time that society wakes up.”
An Asda spokesperson claimed the report was part of a complex and confidential case: “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,” the spokesperson said.
“We continue to defend these claims because retail and distribution are very different sectors, with their own distinct skill sets and rates of pay.”
Earlier this year, Asda invested a record £141m in giving a 10% pay increase to hourly-paid store colleagues, as well as a bonus payment for staff.
