Asda workers gather in Brighton to launch landmark equal pay claim

They joined GMB representatives outside the TUC Congress at the Brighton Centre yesterday to mark the start of what is thought to be the largest private sector equal pay claim to date.

A case which involves 60,000 Asda claimants is being heard at Manchester's Civil Justice Centre.

Court proceedings started on Monday and are expected to last three months. The case centres on the fact the predominantly female retail workforce is paid up to £2.50 per hour less than the predominantly male warehouse workforce. 

Delegates at the congress, which is taking place this week, will debate GMB’s motion on equal pay for the supermarket workers. 

Josh Boyle, 23, a national representative for Asda Southern Region, said distribution and retail workers carry out comparable work.

He said: “They have actually found that people in retail work the pallets up to 12 times whereas people in distribution only handle them four to five times. Also they’re doing customer service, there’s lots of specialist roles within retail whereas there isn’t in distribution.

“But also this is money that the court have said we’re owed. We’re not going for a pay increase – this is money that we are historically owed for the lower rates of pay in retail.

Josh Boyle wants Asda to cough up (Image: Newsquest)“It would be nice if Asda would cough up. Ultimately it comes down to TDR Capital which are now the private equity owners of Asda who have got the money and rather than buying private jets and expensive houses, they should be spending that money, investing that into their staff and paying people what they’re owed.”

The workers pointed at a cardboard cut-out of Manjit Dale, one of the founders of TDR Capital, the majority shareowner for Asda.

Issy says her speech in support of Asda workers was well received (Image: Newsquest)

Also at the protest was Issy Waite, 22, a Sussex University graduate and GMB representative on TUC Young Workers Forum who was Labour’s youngest parliamentary candidate in the 2024 General Election. She gave a speech on the Asda campaign at the TUC Young Workers conference which she said “went down really well”.

She said: “As we have the TUC conference I think it’s really important that young workers' voices are being put on the agenda. We are seeing young workers suffering disproportionately with the cost of living and housing crisis on top of being mistreated at work.”