More than 3,500 Next PLC (LSE:NXT) shop workers have emerged victorious after a six-year legal battle for equal pay with warehouse staff.
Store staff should be paid on equal terms with warehouse workers, an employment tribunal ruled, with lawyers for the former suggesting on Tuesday the win could be worth over £30 million in back pay.
The tribunal had found that Next failed to show that the difference in pay between the two groups was not sex discrimination, according to the Leigh Day lawyers.
An overwhelming majority of Next’s store workers are female, while most in its warehouses are men.
“When you have female-dominated jobs being paid less than male-dominated jobs and the work is equal, employers cannot pay women less simply by pointing to the market and saying it is the going rate for the jobs,” Leigh Day lawyer Elizabeth George commented.
Another lead claimant, Helen Scarsbrook, said: “It has been a long six years battling for the equal pay we all felt we rightly deserved but today we can say we won.”
Leigh Day added the ruling would be a “huge encouragement” for some 112,000 staff it was representing across the likes of Asda, Tesco PLC (LSE:TSCO), J Sainsbury PLC (LSE:SBRY), Morrisons and the Co-op in similar cases.
Next has since said it would appeal the ruling.
“This is the first equal pay group action in the private sector to reach a decision at tribunal level and raises a number of important points of legal principle,” a spokesperson said.