Monica Atwal takes an in-depth look at the Next Equal Pay case and the news that documents relating to the case had been destroyed in a thought leadership article published in Governance and Compliance Magazine.

The equal pay case against Next, and other retailers, like Asda, Sainsbury, Morrisons, Tesco and Co-op, are not cases where the females are doing exactly the same job as males and getting paid less. Such cases are referred to as ‘like work’ cases. These are equal pay cases where employees working in generally male dominated distribution centres are paid more than the largely female store workers. The retail v distribution are claims of equal value. On the face of it the roles are different, but the argument is that the work of retail shop workers is of ‘equal value’ of the staff who work in the distribution centres, both groups contributing equally to the success of the business. From information in the cases and the public domain, it is alleged there is a pay difference of between £1- £4 per hour, but these are based on historic pay data. 

“Major retailer accused of destroying key documents in equal pay cases!” That is one way to grab attention with headlines, and it worked, resulting in much publicity.