United Kingdom: supermarket chain Co-op acknowledges that shop floor and warehouse roles are “comparable”

UK supermarket chain Co-op has voluntarily acknowledged that roles on the shop floor and in its warehouses are comparable, following in the footsteps of local competitor Sainsbury’s, which made a similar move in September (see article n°12662). The acknowledgement by Co-op, which came ahead of a legal decision, was revealed on 31 January by law firm Leigh Day. The firm is representing a group of 1,600 employees of Co-op stores, women for the most part, who are demanding the same level of pay as the supermarket chain’s warehouse staff, who are most often male and are paid up to £3 (€3.57) per hour more. To obtain the right to equal pay, two further steps are required: firstly, to establish legally that these jobs are of “equal value”; secondly, to check that there is no reason for a different level of pay. Despite this first step, Co-op does not intend to give in to the complainants’ demands. A spokesperson for the company says: “We believe that we pay our colleagues fairly for the roles that they do, and so will continue to defend these claims.” UK supermarkets are currently facing hundreds of thousands of similar complaints and could end up having to pay out a total of £8 billion (€9.51 billion) in compensation. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled in June last year that Tesco employees could rely on an article of EU law to claim equal pay (see article n°12559).