The Employment Tribunal accepted that the difference in pay rates between Next’s shop floor staff and their warehouse-based colleagues was not down to “direct discrimination” or the “conscious or subconscious influence of gender” on pay decisions.

Why, then, did the retailer lose the claim brought by store staff? The answer concerns the much thornier issue of whether roles are deemed to be of “equal value”. Next argued that in the wider labour market rates of pay for warehouse workers are higher than for........

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