193 Basildon and Southend shop workers fighting for equal pay

The group of 193 workers are employed at ten Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Morrisons stores.

The shop floor workers are among the 50,000 supermarket workers involved in law firm Leigh Day’s Equal Pay Now campaign.

The campaign is on behalf of hourly paid store-based staff, who the firm say are mainly women, who claim their work is of equal value to that of workers, mainly men, who work in the supermarkets’ distribution centres. 

The firm believes that hundreds more supermarket workers across Basildon and Southend are likely to be eligible, and that the average worker could be entitled to £10,000 for up to six years of back pay.

Tesco and Asda have said the case is “complex” and are defending the rates, saying the store and distribution are “very different sectors”.

One worker, who has been at a Sainsbury’s store for ten years, said: “Being paid what we’re worth would show us that Sainsbury’s appreciates the demands of our job and that it’s just as valuable as the work warehouse staff do.”

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An Asda spokesman said: “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 skill sets and pay rates.”

A Tesco spokesman said: “The jobs in our stores and distribution centres are different.

These roles require different skills and demands which lead to variations in pay – but this has absolutely nothing to do with gender.”

A Sainsbury’s spokesperson said: “We will continue to robustly defend our position in this litigation because we stand by our position that roles in stores and depots are fundamentally different.”