Next said it had to pay a higher market rate to warehouse staff because of recruitment and retention pressures. Photograph: Mike Kemp/In Pictures/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Next said it had to pay a higher market rate to warehouse staff because of recruitment and retention pressures. Photograph: Mike Kemp/In Pictures/Getty Images Next Next overturns equal pay ruling that raised basic wages for shop staff Retailer wins appeal against 2024 decision forcing it to pay shop workers the same as warehouse employees
Prefer the Guardian on Google 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 to the workforce in its stores. It added: “Next believes this element of the judgment is not only correct in law, but also a victory for common sense.”
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Show more The retailer said the judgment affirmed: “Employers must be able to pay what is necessary to recruit the people they need; and that doing so does not oblige them to raise the pay of other employees where there is no reason to do so.”
The law firm Leigh Day, which represents Next store workers, described it as a “mixed ruling” as it rejected Next’s challenge to the tribunal’s findings that it had failed to justify lower rates of night-time pay, overtime pay and the failure to provide paid rest breaks to store workers.
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