(Bloomberg) -- Equal pay cases against UK companies surged by more than a third in a sign that high-profile court cases against the country’s biggest retailers may be inspiring employees to raise complaints at work.
Men and women in the UK must get equal pay for doing work that is judged to be of equal value, unless an employer can demonstrate that the reason for the difference is non-discriminatory.
Over the 2023-24 financial year, the UK’s employment arbitration body Acas said that 1,519 individual equal pay cases went through its dispute resolution service, up from 1,135 in 2022-23.
This is when employees lodge a complaint that they aren’t being paid fairly compared to others who do the same or a similar job. Employees must first file with the government body before bringing their claim in court.
Attention has focused on equal pay law amid a long-drawn out battle in the courts against Britain’s largest supermarkets. Retail staff at Asda Group Ltd., J Sainsbury Plc, WM Morrison Supermarkets Ltd., Co-operative Group Ltd and Tesco Plc. argued that their work is of equal value to that done by warehouse workers, a majority of whom were men. The total possible compensation in those cases is estimated by lawyers for the claimants to be as high as £8 billion ($10.6 billion).
3,500 mostly female shopfloor employees at British clothing retailer Next Plc. won an equal pay claim last month, highlighting the risk to other companies. Judges ruled against the retailer’s argument that warehouse staff were paid higher rates, based on their market value.
“The Next case was very significant,” said Stefan Cross KC, a lawyer specializing in equal pay cases. “The history of these cases is that a considerable number of the women and men who are entitled to pursue claims are scared to do so until somebody actually wins.”
The right to make an equal pay claim is currently limited to differences in pay based on sex, but the governing Labour party have pledged to extend full equal pay rights to cover disability and ethnicity under a new Race Equality Act. The move would be phased in to give employers time to redress unequal pay although ministers have not announced when they will introduce the new legislation.
Former Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch, currently a contender in the Conservative Party’s leadership race, had resisted the extension of equal pay rights, saying it would lead to “a bonanza for dodgy, activist lawyers.”
A YouGov survey commissioned by Acas found more than a third of women believe they don’t get paid the same as men at their organization, while just under 48% said that they were paid equally.
Men made 7.7% more than women in full-time jobs as of 2023 in the UK, up from 7.6% the year before, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.
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