Retailer wins appeal against 2024 decision forcing it to pay shop workers the same as warehouse employees
The UK retailer Next has overturned a 2024 court ruling forcing it to pay its shop staff the same higher basic pay rates as its warehouse workers under equal pay rules.
The chain, led by the Conservative peer Simon Wolfson, said it had “won a landmark victory in its ongoing equal pay litigation”. It has succeeded in its appeal to the employment appeal tribunal “on the key issue of basic pay”, it said.
It comes two years after 3,540 claimants won a six-year legal fight for equal pay, which the fashion and homeware retailer then appealed against. Shop workers accused Next of paying its retail sales staff – who are predominantly female – lower hourly wages than its warehouse workers, the majority of whom are male.
Since that employment tribunal ruling in Leeds, several thousand more Next staff have brought equal pay claims, bringing the total number of claimants involved in the litigation to more than 6,400. Next employs more than 20,000 store staff across 458 stores in the UK and Ireland.
Next said the appeal judgment endorsed its position that it “should not have to pay shop assistants and warehouse operatives the same amount of basic pay, in circumstances where the market and working conditions are very different”.
The retailer argued that it had to pay a higher market rate to warehouse staff because of recruitment and retention pressures, which it said did not apply...
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