A long-serving Asda shop floor worker has said she deserves equal pay with her male colleagues at the supermarket’s distribution centres.
Jackie Ballantyne has worked at the retail giant’s branch in Ardrossan, North Ayrshire, since it opened 18 years ago.
She is now an active part of the GMB union’s campaign for shop floor staff – who are largely female – to be paid the same as their colleagues in depots, who are largely male.
Jackie, 45, welcomed a decision this week by judges at a Manchester Employment Tribunal who found that most shop workers have jobs of “equal value to higher-paid positions” in Asda’s warehouses.
It means the campaign is now one step closer to winning potential payouts.
“It’s taken a long time to get this far,” she told the Record. “Instead of spending more money on lawyers’ fees, this could have been settled before now.”
Jackie said it was unfair that depot workers could be paid more than those working on the shop floor at Asda’s supermarkets across the UK.
“They work in the depot, but it’s us who have to unload everything, as well as deal with members of the public,” she added.
“Stock is dropped off at the store and colleagues have to then break that down, work the pallets, and get the stock on the shop floor.”
Jackie added: “If Asda settled the claim, we would be happy. In this day and age, we shouldn’t have to be fighting for equal pay.
“In the past few years, they had Michael Buble on a Christmas advert. They spent millions on that. They’ll spend on money on lawyers, but not pay the workers.”
More than 60,000 workers joined together to accuse the company of sex discrimination after it emerged that the warehouse workers were earning up to £3.74 more per hour.
The result represents a second hurdle cleared for the workers who were successful in the case. Asda has strongly denied its pay rates are discriminatory.
The supermarket said the equal value findings represented a “mixed picture”.
The case will now move to the Material Factor Defence stage which will determine if there are justifiable reasons for the pay differences such as geography or market forces – Asda strongly believes there are.
An Asda spokesperson said: “We strongly reject any claim that Asda’s pay rates are discriminatory.
“Asda will continue to defend these claims at the next stage of the litigation because retail and distribution are two different industry sectors that have their own market rates and distinct pay structures.”
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