Union hails ‘massive victory’ as Asda equal pay challenge fails in Supreme Court

The Supreme Court this morning ruled that 40,000 shopfloor staff, the majority of which are women, at Asda can be compared to distribution centre workers, the majority of which are men, and, as such, are entitled to equal pay.

The outcome of today’s ruling could have far-reaching implications for equal pay claims for the retail sector and beyond.

Shopworkers union GMB hailed the ruling as a “massive victory for 40,000 workers” and urged bosses to sit down with them to discuss the next steps towards a payout that could run to £500m. 

“This is amazing news and a massive victory for Asda’s predominantly women shopfloor workforce,” said GMB legal director Susan Harris. “We are proud to have supported our members in this litigation and helped them in their fight for pay justice.

“We now call on Asda to sit down with us to reach agreement on the backpay owed to our members – which could run to hundreds of millions of pounds.”

An Asda spokesman said: “This ruling relates to one stage of a complex case that is likely to take several years to reach a conclusion.

“We are defending these claims because the pay in our stores and distribution centres is the same for colleagues doing the same jobs regardless of their gender.

“Retail and distribution are very different sectors with their own distinct skillsets and pay rates. Asda has always paid colleagues the market rate in these sectors and we remain confident in our case.”

It was Asda’s fourth judicial setback in a long-running dispute. In 2016, an employment tribunal decided store workers were entitled to compare themselves to warehouse workers. Asda appealed that decision, which was upheld by Court of Appeals judges in 2019. 

Sources say the next stage in the dispute would involve an employment tribunal deciding whether specific store and distribution jobs were of “equal value”.

If judges decided that different jobs were of equal value, the litigation would enter a third stage.