Latest gender pay gap BS could cost Tesco 4 Billion

[Pavros]

Whether checkout staff get paid the same as warehouse staff is irrelevant because they are different jobs.

Isn't this the crux of the case? - it's not 'checkout' staff but 'store' staff. Store staff are arguing that they are doing some of the same job as warehouse staff as they are lifting goods when stacking shelves. Their argument is that it is irrelevant that they also have to work on the checkout (although, if they had more sense, they 'could' argue that their job involves MORE skill as they ALSO have to work on checkouts AND deal with the public). Store staff are trying to argue that it is the same job as warehouse staff as there are certain duties which are similar.

 

[simon12]

My comment was in response to your take on the Tesco problem as expressed above. The alternative to charging more for their products is for Tesco upper management to take pay cuts and shareholders to take reduced dividends. They wont do this of course, instead they will use a variety of reasons to justify their wealth and Trickle Down Economics is one of them.

I don't quite understand the second comment. If you are pointing out that people pay no income tax if they are working "24 hours or less a week" I assume that this is because their earnings are insufficient to qualify for income tax. In which case I agree entirely that they are obviously being paid much too little and that their situation should be addressed as a priority.

However, I wonder if this bit of the law was introduced for the benefit of more fortunate souls. Imagine if I was employed on a salary of £30,000 as a Director on the Boards of six different companies. With Board Meetings scheduled for once every fortnight I would be able to put in a full eight hour day for each company, claim that I was working for "24 hours or less a week" and pick up my £180,000 tax free.

That seems fair, especially if we are "All in this together!"

I see what you mean I didn't mean to take this off of checkout staff vs warehouse.
Yes 24 hours a week earning £8 an hour keeps you below your tax allowance, I said it to reinforce the point the neither the richest or poorest in the world have anything to do with this issue.

 

[simon12]

1) Do men and women both get paid the same for working on the checkout?
Yes, there was never a claim made otherwise
2) Do men and women both get paid the same for working in the warehouse?
Yes, there was never a claim made otherwise
3) Are the number of jobs given to men/women in proportion to the number of applications to those jobs?
No one has claimed otherwise
4) Are there any states or implied restrictions in men/women being able to apply for those jobs if they otherwise wanted to do them?
No one has claimed so.

The only part of this that makes any sense (and not alot) to anyone rational is that these jobs are lower paid purely because women tend to do them more or that somehow the jobs have the same value.

 

[-Bezza-]

Isn't this the crux of the case? - it's not 'checkout' staff but 'store' staff. Store staff are arguing that they are doing some of the same job as warehouse staff as they are lifting goods when stacking shelves. Their argument is that it is irrelevant that they also have to work on the checkout (although, if they had more sense, they 'could' argue that their job involves MORE skill as they ALSO have to work on checkouts AND deal with the public). Store staff are trying to argue that it is the same job as warehouse staff as there are certain duties which are similar.

Well that's a different argument - whether the jobs roles are 'the same' or not does not make it an issue of gender; that merely makes it an issue of whether one job is overpaid compared to the other. The case is about gender discrimination.

But also it's still not the same job. Of course it's possible to see that there are some similarities and crossovers in the jobs but that doesn't make them the same. Is the job of a post(wo)man the same as working in a sorting office?

If they were the same job, or effectively the same, why are there more men working in the warehouses than women? What would happen if the case concludes that they are the same job and so should be paid equally - could a member of floor staff be asked to do their shift in the warehouse? Would they be able to refuse to do so and on what grounds? Would someone with no disability be able to say they didn't have the strength or stamina to do the job?

Working in the warehouse of a supermarket is physically demanding for the entirety of the shift, in dark and cold conditions, can be dangerous, involves spending extended periods of time in large freezers etc. In the supermarket I worked, the guys (yes, all guys) would be lifting some pretty heavy boxes and scaling up and down racking to stack things away. I know I would rather be working on the shop floor, as would many others, and for that reason it is paid less.

 

[Pavros]

Bezza, it's not a different argument - if you read the link in the first post, it is the exact argument that the lawyers are bringing. I agree with everything you have said in post #44 but it apparently is not as easy as that. The lawyers are arguing that 'work done on the shop floor is of equal value to that done by a comparator' and this is a very technical legal issue. Tesco are not the only company facing cases like this, Asda and Sainsbury also have cases against them.

Again I agree with everything you set out in your post but there must be something we are missing otherwise there would be no legal case to answer.

 

[-Bezza-]

these jobs are lower paid purely because women tend to do them more or that somehow the jobs have the same value.

There is no law requiring the ranking of jobs by "value" and paying accordingly. I would think MPs would be loathe to pass a law like that...

The issue of women tending to do the lower paid jobs is an interesting one. I don't think that's a point that puts Tesco in the wrong on this pay issue but raises some interesting questions about wider society.

I don't have any evidence to support any of this, but the only jobs I could think where women would get paid more or find it easier to get a job are those where there is a reliance on stereotypically female personality traits, because of society preconceptions or for the eye candy factor. I believe it has been shown that women will, on average, earn more (through reaching more senior positions) in teaching, psychiatry and counselling, occupational therapy etc. Anecdotally, I would think there are jobs such as bar work, waiting staff, events, travel blogging, adult films, modelling, make up industry etc where women will find it easier to get jobs or get paid more because of aesthetics. Either way, interesting that the advantages to women do come back to society's norms for men vs women.

 

[-Bezza-]

Bezza, it's not a different argument - if you read the link in the first post, it is the exact argument that the lawyers are bringing. I agree with everything you have said in post #44 but it apparently is not as easy as that. The lawyers are arguing that 'work done on the shop floor is of equal value to that done by a comparator' and this is a very technical legal issue. Tesco are not the only company facing cases like this, Asda and Sainsbury also have cases against them.

Again I agree with everything you set out in your post but there must be something we are missing otherwise there would be no legal case to answer.

The bit that's missing is the other side of the argument. Everything presented in the article are those of the claimants, not the arguments that will necessarily be accepted by the courts. Leigh Day are an interesting law firm with history of pursuing some contentious personal injury and discrimination cases. They're pretty much big-time ambulance chasers. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a no-win no fee arrangement they're on, or at least on a very small retainer from some union reps, and this is more about publicity, albeit with some chance of success. Headline-grabbing gender discrimination case brought out on the 100th anniversary of women being given the vote. Coincidence?

Maybe something will come of this, but I really doubt it.

 

[Gunge]

That was very much the case when I worked in a supermarket many moons ago - very, very few men working on checkouts.

That's cos guys are way too efficient.... women on the checkout tend to natter and waffle about anything and everything but mainly about how they should actually be on their break. As a result, folk waiting down the queue get so bored they decide to do more shopping so Tosco's ( or whatever's ) bottom line is improved. Ye I can hear the squeals of outrage at that nasty Gunge but I know this to be an undisputable fact from observations made over many years.

 

[Saisonator]

There is no law requiring the ranking of jobs by "value" and paying accordingly. I would think MPs would be loathe to pass a law like that...

The issue of women tending to do the lower paid jobs is an interesting one. I don't think that's a point that puts Tesco in the wrong on this pay issue but raises some interesting questions about wider society.

I don't have any evidence to support any of this, but the only jobs I could think where women would get paid more or find it easier to get a job are those where there is a reliance on stereotypically female personality traits, because of society preconceptions or for the eye candy factor. I believe it has been shown that women will, on average, earn more (through reaching more senior positions) in teaching, psychiatry and counselling, occupational therapy etc. Anecdotally, I would think there are jobs such as bar work, waiting staff, events, travel blogging, adult films, modelling, make up industry etc where women will find it easier to get jobs or get paid more because of aesthetics. Either way, interesting that the advantages to women do come back to society's norms for men vs women.

There is no law requiring the ranking of jobs by "value" and paying accordingly. I would think MPs would be loathe to pass a law like that...

The issue of women tending to do the lower paid jobs is an interesting one. I don't think that's a point that puts Tesco in the wrong on this pay issue but raises some interesting questions about wider society.

I don't have any evidence to support any of this, but the only jobs I could think where women would get paid more or find it easier to get a job are those where there is a reliance on stereotypically female personality traits, because of society preconceptions or for the eye candy factor. I believe it has been shown that women will, on average, earn more (through reaching more senior positions) in teaching, psychiatry and counselling, occupational therapy etc. Anecdotally, I would think there are jobs such as bar work, waiting staff, events, travel blogging, adult films, modelling, make up industry etc where women will find it easier to get jobs or get paid more because of aesthetics. Either way, interesting that the advantages to women do come back to society's norms for men vs women.

Women naturally gravitate to jobs that involve interaction with people.
Scientists studied small babies and found that when offered a smiling persons face or a small mechanical object, the girls tended to stare at the face and the boys the mechanical object. It is thought to be the effect of higher tostesterone in the boys causing the differences.
I heard it was an evolutionary adaptation where the man would make the weapon and go hunting and foraging, whereas the woman had to be very good at socialising and keeping the other femails on side, so to increase the chances of her offspring reaching aldulthood.

 

[Gunge]

...... when offered a smiling persons face or a small mechanical object, the girls tended to stare at the face and the boys the mechanical object. It is thought to be the effect of higher tostesterone in the boys causing the differences.

I can stare at a dismantled engine in all its splendour for hours on end and not get bored.

 

[Clint]

I worked in a warehouse/stores full of millions of spectacle lenses that were either finished and got picked direct for orders to opticians or were blanks to go into the lab to be made into finished lenses.
Lots of women worked in the stores and about 4 blokes. Everyone picked orders...the lenses only weighed grammes each.
On shipment day each week a container from Japan turned up with 20 or so pallets of boxed lenses...each box could weigh 15-20 kg..a pallet held 40 boxes.
I was often left alone for days on end lumping and emptying these boxes as all the women "disappeared ". When I asked about their whereabouts I was told that emptying the shipment etc was "man's work" and the boxes were "heavy and dirty". We all got paid the same though....until I got thoroughly pissed off with it and left.

 

[Dutto]

............. its happening all over the public sector with Diner Ladies demanding equal pay to Bin Men.

I presume that you are referring to this report by the BBC ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1515501.stm

If so then maybe you conveniently forgot that:

1. The Dinner Ladies were already on the same Pay Scale as the Street Sweepers and Refuse Collectors. but
2. Men, working as street sweepers or refuse collectors on the same pay scale, were receiving extra cash through bonuses and attendance payments.

That is obviously a blatant breach of the Equal Pay Act of 1970 and the Dinner Ladies quite rightly won their case.

............
Yes 24 hours a week earning £8 an hour keeps you below your tax allowance, I said it to reinforce the point the neither the richest or poorest in the world have anything to do with this issue.

The title of this Thread is "Latest gender pay gap BS could cost Tesco 4 Billion"

I have two comments:

1. It definitely is not "BS" if the upper management of Tesco are breaking The Law.
2. The upper management of Tesco are paid extraordinarily well for their services. They are some of the "richest people in the world" that you mention; but they still have no immunity from The Law.

In 2015/16 the CEO of Tesco was paid as follows:

• Salary $1,250,000
• Annual Incentive a maximum of 250% of base salary (i.e. £3,125,000) (*)
• Long Term Incentive a maximum of 275% of base salary (i.e. £3,437,500) (**)

So, the CEO of Tesco had the earning potential of £7,812,500. This is the potential salary for just one member of Tesco's Management Team and I think by any standards we may class the Tesco CEO as "rich".:thumb:


(*)
The performance measures used to decide the level of incentive paid was as follows:

• 50% sales
• 30% operating profit
• 20% individual measures.

I'm not sure which of these Performance Measures is reflected by keeping workers wages low but it's in there somewhere.

(**)
The performance measures for Long Term Incentives used in-house jargon so I am unsure as to how the performance was measured.

https://www.tescoplc.com/media/264170/tescoar16_remunerationreport.pdf

 

[simon12]

To be honest I never looked into any detail on the diner lady thing I just heard of it. As for the law its for the courts to decide if its BS or not but i'm calling it early but could be wrong on the law but i'm still calling it BS based of women get paid the same as men for the same jobs now in Tesco. The CEOs pay is not based on gender and I don't feel qualified to comment on how hard or skilled the job is but I am guessing he applied for a job on that pay and the employer decided he should get the job and the pay scheme they offered him or her but even if theres some wrong doing here its not related to the BS surrounding a case where women get the same pay as men for the same jobs but make up a victim status based on more women work in the lower paid job. Sorry if this doesn't make sense had a few beers and about to sleep.

 

[Dutto]

If, like the Dinner Ladies in Cheshire, the Tesco employees are on the same Pay Grade (as agreed by both Tesco Management and their Representative) then they should be on the same pay.

In one place I worked one of the IT Supervisors got promoted to a Management level where he could dole out Personal Performance Bonuses; and one of his first decisions was to award across the board 5% Bonuses to the IT Personnel and 2% Bonuses to the Operations and Maintenance Personnel. The increased money for the 5% Bonus came from the reduction of Bonus payments to the Operations and Maintenance Staff!

None of this was "gender" based but the move caused so much ill feeling on site that the Company shipped the man off to the Middle East on a "promotion to nowhere", restored Pay Grade parity and Personal Performance Bonuses were again just what the name implies.

It only took about 12 months and the introduction of a Union to represent the interests of the Operations and Maintenance Personnel.

 

[Gunge]

Dutto... I think everyone should be pay-graded according to performance. At our works there's folk who think just clocking in is enough, whilst others pull out all the stops and effectively earn the slackers' wages for them. A situation present no doubt in every company in the land. Man / woman.. meh. Do the job and do it well and get paid right. If not, **** off and good luck.

 

[Wouter]

About woman getting payed less because they choose to do lower paying jobs:

This is actually quite a tricky issue. Because on the surface it seems that this is just a personal choice and woman care less about higher paying jobs.
But is this actually the case? Because interestingly, it works the other way around as well! There are many jobs that used to be dominated completely by men, but are now dominated by woman.
And lo and behold, society now pays less for these jobs then when it was all-men. And in general society seems to give less status to jobs which are frequented by woman.

So what I am trying to say is, that these issues are quite complicated. Yes the wage gap is 100% explained by a group of people more likely to choose certain jobs.
But do woman choose to have low paying jobs? Or are these jobs low paying because woman do them?
Just some food for thought.

 

[Dutto]

Dutto... I think everyone should be pay-graded according to performance. At our works there's folk who think just clocking in is enough, whilst others pull out all the stops and effectively earn the slackers' wages for them. A situation present no doubt in every company in the land. Man / woman.. meh. Do the job and do it well and get paid right. If not, **** off and good luck.

Personally, I thank The Lord that most of my working life was spent working for myself or for American Oil & Gas Companies. They had a simple work ethic:

• Do the job and we pay you.
• Do the job well and we will train and promote you.
• Don't do the job well enough and we will fire you.

It worked for me! On one job I was a Shift Supervisor on my side of the fence but I didn't have the "qualifications" to clean out the toilets on our customer's side of the fence, which was managed by a British company.

 

[simon12]

I'm concluding my thoughts on this much as they started with this, making this about gender is total BS, saying the 2 jobs are of equal value to get a pat rise is BS as you could have applied to do the other job & the fact we have laws that this is even going to court is BS. Whether there pay is fair for the job they actually do is a separate issue from what this case is based on. This article describes quite well what the legal case is based on and how it could work https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-qa-the-tesco-equal-pay-dispute

 

[Ciaran12s]

Dutto... I think everyone should be pay-graded according to performance. At our works there's folk who think just clocking in is enough, whilst others pull out all the stops and effectively earn the slackers' wages for them. A situation present no doubt in every company in the land. Man / woman.. meh. Do the job and do it well and get paid right. If not, **** off and good luck.

I pull my hair out quite regularly due to similar situations! Very infuriating. Some people just don't give a toss and are usually the first in line for promotion

 

[Ciaran12s]

If two people do the same job they should be paid the same money. However after 6 months, a year, 10 years whatever. Those two people doing the same job, if one is crap and the other is good then the person that works better, harder and more efficient should get pay rises to suit their work ethic. If the crap person is really crap they should leave or be let go. If they're ok and get the job done but only, fair enough but the better worker should be praised through increased remuneration. Thank yous don't pay the bills.